CHAP. VI.] UNDERGRADUATE OF TRINITY. 151 



Glenlair, 13th Now. 1850. 



I am glad you have communication with Stokes and 

 Mackenzie. 



Is all Cambridge up in arms against the Pope and 

 Cardinal Wiseman ? I cannot enter into all the fuss about 

 it. If there is any law to hinder people calling themselves 

 Cardinals or Archbishops, let it be acted on ; but if there 

 is no such law, let the assumption of empty titles ... be 

 laughed at. 



Men of genius are often represented by themselves 

 and others as owing little or nothing to their educa- 

 tion. This certainly was not true of Maxwell, whose 

 receptivity was only less than his originality. He laid 

 a strong retentive grasp on all that was given to him, 

 and set his own stamp on it in return. Both what 

 was good and what was defective in his early training 

 had left a lasting impress on him, and it was by no 

 means an indifferent circumstance that, in the matu- 

 rity of his powers, he entered Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, at an advanced period of the long mastership 

 of Whewell. 



I well remember my surprise, not unmixed with 

 needless pangs of boyish jealousy, on finding in the 

 following summer that Maxwell had all at once made 

 a troop of friends. Their names were always on his 

 lips, and he loved by some vivid trait to indicate the 

 character of each. His acquaintance was multifarious, 

 and he had many pithy anecdotes to relate of other 

 than his own particular associates. 



He was at first in lodgings in King's Parade, where 

 he "chummed" with an old Edinburgh schoolfellow, 



