xlii LIFE OF DR. ROLLESTON. 



of his intellectual faculties. The charm of his character, the 

 beauty of his nature, was recognised by all. His heart was 

 worthy of his head. It may go without saying that Rolleston 

 was in a high degree a conscientious man, and he had the courage 

 of his opinions. And who that knew him will forget his tender 

 sympathy with the weak and suffering, his honest dislike of 

 tortuous and secret ways, his manly scorn of all that is mean or 

 ignoble, his delicate sensibility, his subtle humour, his refined 

 taste, his keen appreciation of beauty and of the nobler side of 

 things, his ardent love of truth and his reverence for the highest 

 forms of it 1 He was a noble man, in whom was mingled to the 

 last much of the delightful nature of the boy. Few, very few, 

 could be named who combined so much sweetness with so much 

 light.' 



Most of Rolleston's research and writing was henceforth 

 directly connected with his Professorship. The subjects he had 

 to deal with may be best described by quoting from the 

 Obituary notice of the Royal Society, of which he was elected 

 Fellow in 1862, written by his friend Professor W. H. Flower: — 

 1 The duties of the Linacre Professorship involved the teaching of 

 a wide range of subjects included under the terms of physiology 

 and anatomy, human and comparative, to which he added the 

 hitherto neglected but important subject of anthropology, as well 

 as the care of a great and ever-growing museum. In the present 

 condition of scientific knowledge it requires a man of very ver- 

 satile intellect and extensive powers of reading to maintain any- 

 thing like an adequate acquaintance with the current literature 

 of any one of these subjects, much more to undertake original 

 observations on his own account. Even a man of Rolleston's 

 powers felt the impossibility of any one person doing justice to 

 the Chair as thus constituted, and strongly urged the necessity of 

 dividing it into three professorships, one of physiology, one of com- 

 parative anatomy, and one of human anatomy and anthropology. 

 The work which he did however contrive to find time to publish, 

 and by which he will be chiefly known to posterity, is remark- 

 able for its thoroughness. He never committed himself to 



