CHAP. X.] ABERDEEN MARRIAGE. 277 



But in 1860 came the fusion of the colleges, and 

 the Professorship of Natural Philosophy at Marischal 

 College was one of those suppressed. In the same 

 winter his old friend Professor James D. Forbes, 

 after struggling for eight years against ill -health, 

 resigned his Chair, and Maxwell became a candidate 

 for the vacant post. It is enough to have alluded 

 once for all a to the contest, which ended in the 

 appointment of Professor Tait. It only remains to 

 say that Maxwell's relations with that eminent 

 man, who had been his companion both in Edinburgh 

 and at Cambridge, always continued to be of the 

 most friendly kind; and their correspondence, often of 

 the quaintest description, would of itself fill a volume 

 of very entertaining reading for those possessed of a 

 clue to the labyrinth of science, learning, wit, and 

 frolicsome allusion, which it contains. The two men 

 looked over proof-sheets of each other's writings, and 

 when they most differed, Maxwell's criticism condensed 

 in humorous verse was always understood and wel- 

 comed by the Edinburgh Professor. In the summer 



1 See above, p. 258. As this candidature was the last occasion on 

 which Maxwell was compelled to collect testimonials, it may be well 

 to add here to what has been said above about his teaching powers, 

 that his success at Aberdeen was very strongly attested by his 

 colleagues, and in particular by Thomas Clark, the Professor of 

 Chemistry. And four years earlier, in February 1854, Professor 

 G. G. Stokes had given this important testimony : " . . . One thing 

 more is wanted in a teacher, namely, a power of conveying clearly his 

 knowledge to others. That Mr. Maxwell possesses that power I feel 

 satisfied, having once been present when he was giving an account of 

 some of his geometrical researches to the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society, on which occasion I was struck with the singularly lucid 

 manner of his exposition.'' (See p. 212.) 



