270 WORK AT CAMBRIDGE 



the running with Bradshaw he was not a very flagrant 

 early riser. His daily wayfaring to the Museum was an 

 affair which called for no little effort on his part, for his 

 great lameness much accentuated by the accident that 

 befell him in Heligoland made him a " four-legged 

 man " ; he used a stick in each hand and his rate of 

 progression was not rapid. In his room at the Museum 

 he sat with the door open, and was thus enabled to 

 waylay any passer-by with whom he wanted to talk. 

 His lunch consisted usually of a glass of sherry and a 

 biscuit of the nature of a " Captain's," or first cousin 

 thereto, and when, for some reason which I do not 

 recall, these odontoclastic delicacies became unobtain- 

 able, the whole tenour of his life seemed in danger of 

 being upset until it was discovered that the College cook 

 could produce an article equally solid in substance if 

 not superior in merit. By this Spartan diet he was 

 supported until dinner- time, at which meal he played a 

 good English knife and fork, keeping up with marked 

 gravity of ceremonial the old-fashioned custom confined 

 nowadays, alas ! to his own College and that of Magdalen, 

 Oxford of "taking wine" with his guests. Though 

 not intolerant of the "beaded bubble winking at the 

 brim " it was the more serious vintages of the Penin- 

 sula which chiefly appealed to him. A mutual friend 

 reminds me of the appreciation with which he held 

 a particularly attractive glass of port to the light and 

 murmured " How old Kingsley would have lapped 

 this up ! " 



A more congenial neighbour at dinner no one could 

 wish for, but he was at his best with a small party of 

 " birdy" friends where conversation was more or less 

 general and the political atmosphere purged of " all 



those d d Radical ideas " which found such scant 



favour in his sight. To put it mildly, Newton was no 

 Progressive. In his eyes alteration of any kind was 

 the one unpardonable sin ; change little short of a crime. 

 I feel sure that the donning of a new suit must have 

 caused him actual pain, and he avoided inflicting it as 



