152 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. VI. 



Charles Hope Kobertson. 1 It appears that the college 

 lectures in mathematics were still felt to be rather 

 elementary, but that he worked harder problems (some 

 were of his own invention) with Tait and with Porter 

 of Peterhouse, who was still his private tutor. A 

 certain amount of classical reading was required of 

 freshmen, and he still took his classics seriously. 

 There is an allusion to the Ajax in one of his letters, 

 and he makes critical remarks upon Demosthenes. 

 There was also a lecture on Tacitus by a " deep, half- 

 sentence lecturer." Either now or in the following 

 year at -some time before the little-go examination 

 of March 1852 he translated the choral odes of the 

 Ajax into rhymed English verse, 2 and made a rough 

 caricature of Ajax slaughtering the oxen. 



His chief outdoor amusements were walking, 

 bathing, and sculling. He was upset in his "funny" 

 in May 1851 a trifling accident to so expert a 

 swimmer. " But," writes a contemporary Cantab, " he 

 richly deserved it. For he tried to take off his jersey 

 after c shipping' his oars. The oscillations of the 

 funny became rapidly more extensive, in spite of his 

 violent efforts at equilibrium." For winter recreation 

 he ordered a pair of basket-sticks to be made at home. 



He tried some odd experiments in the arrangement 

 of his hours of work and sleep. But his father disap- 

 proved of such vagaries, and they were not continued 

 long although not entirely abandoned even when he 

 had rooms in college. The authority just quoted says, 



1 Now Rector of Smeeth, near Ashford, in Kent. 

 2 I did not know of this until the present year, 1881. 



