BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xlvii 



over the cliffs and moors of his native county. Strangers who first met him were in- 

 variably struck by his simple and unaffected manner. He was a delightful companion, 

 always cheerful and genial, showing in society but few traces of his really shy and 

 retiring disposition. His nature was sympathetic and generous, and in few men have 

 the moral and intellectual qualities been more perfectly balanced. An attempt to sketch 

 his character cannot be more fitly closed than in the words of Dr Donald MacAlister, 

 who knew him well, and attended him in his last illness: "His earnest devotion to 

 duty, his simplicity, his perfect self-lessness, were to all who knew his life at Cambridge 

 a perpetual lesson, more eloquent than speech. From the time of his first great dis- 

 covery scientific honours were showered upon him, but they left him as they found 

 him modest, gentle, and sincere. Controversies raged for a time around his name, national 

 and scientific rivalries were stirred up concerning his work and its reception, but he took 

 no part in them, and would generously have yielded to others' claims more than his 

 greatest contemporaries would allow to be just. With a single mind for pure knowledge 

 he pursued his studies, here bringing a whole chaos into cosmic order, there vindicating 

 the supremacy of a natural law beyond the imagined limits of its operation ; now tracing 

 and abolishing errors that had crept into the calculations of the acknowledged masters 

 of his craft, and now giving time and strength to resolving the self-made difficulties 

 of a mere beginner, and all the while with so little thought of winning recognition or 

 applause that much of his most perfect work remained for long, or still remains, 

 unpublished." 



He was suddenly attacked by severe illness at the end of October 1889, but he 

 recovered sufficiently to resume his mathematical work in the usual way for several months. 

 In June of the following year he was again attacked by an illness from which he never 

 completely recovered, and he passed away on the early morning of January 21, 1892, 

 after being confined to his bed for ten weeks. The funeral service took place in Pembroke 

 College Chapel, and he was interred in St Giles's Cemetery, on the Huntingdon Road. 

 There were many who thought that his resting-place should have been in Westminster 

 Abbey, and a royal wish was expressed to this effect ; but it is perhaps more fitting 

 that he should lie in this quiet graveyard close to the Observatory where he passed 

 so many happy and peaceful years. 



On February 20, 1892, a public meeting was held at St John's College, with the view 

 of taking steps to place a bust or other memorial of him in Westminster Abbey. The 

 proceedings on this representative occasion bore eloquent testimony to the admiration and 

 affection in which he was held by his friends, and to the widespread wish throughout 

 the country for such a memorial to one who was not only a great but a good man 1 . 

 No suitable site for a bust could be found in the Abbey, but a medallion has been 

 placed in an admirable position close to the grave of Newton. This medallion, executed 

 by Mr Bruce Joy, was unveiled on May 9, 1895, after a ceremony in the Jerusalem 

 Chamber, at which addresses were delivered by leading members of the University and 

 others. A bust, also executed by Mr Bruce Joy, which represents Adams in the 

 later years of his life, was presented to St John's College by Mrs Adams in the same 



1 A report of this meeting was published in a special number of the Cambridge University Reporter, March 10, 

 1892, p. 607. 



A. 9 



