CHRIST'S COLLEGE. 



141 



peace with all men in and out of office at Lady Margaret's 

 other foundation. The impression of a contemporary of 

 my father's is that Christ's in their day was a pleasant, fairly 

 quiet college, with some tendency towards '' horsiness " ; many 

 of the men made a custom of going to Newmarket during the 

 races, though betting was not a regular practice. In this they 

 were by no means discouraged by the Senior Tutor, Mr. 

 Shaw, who was himself generally to be seen on the Heath on 

 these occasions. There was a somew^hat high proportion of 

 Fellow-Commoners, — eight or nine, to sixty or seventy Pen- 

 sioners, and this would indicate that it was not an unpleasant 

 college for men with money to spend and with no great love 

 of strict discipline. 



The way in which the service was conducted in chapel 

 shows that the Dean, at least, was not over zealous. I have 

 heard my father tell how at evening chapel the Dean used to 

 read alternate verses of the Psalms, without making even a 

 pretence of waiting for the congregation to take their share. 

 And when the Lesson was a lengthy one, he would rise and 

 go on with the Canticles after the scholar had read fifteen or 

 twenty verses. 



It is curious that my father often spoke of his Cambridge 

 life as if it had been so much time wasted, forgetting that, 

 although the set studies of the place were barren enough for 

 him, he yet gained in the highest degree the best advantages 

 of a University life — the contact with men and an opportunity 

 for his mind to grow vigorously. It is true that he valued 

 at its highest the advantages which he gained from associating 

 with Professor Henslow and some others, but he seemed to 

 consider this as a chance outcome of his life at Cambridge, 

 not an advantage for which Alma Mater could claim any 

 credit. One of my father's Cambridge friends was the late 

 Mr. J. M. Herbert, County Court Judge for South Wales, 

 from whom I was fortunate enough to obtain some notes 

 which help us to gain an idea of how my father impressed 

 his contemporaries. Mr. Herbert writes : '' I think it was in 

 the spring of 1828 that I first met Darwin, either at my 



