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NATURE 



\_ytme 1 6, 1881 



now to speak. Suffice it to say that the letters now pub- 

 lished contain additional testimony to the truth of Mr. 

 Todhunter's remark in his preface to the volumes men- 

 tioned above : "I do not think adequate justice can be 

 rendered to Dr. Whewell's vast knowledge and power by 

 any person who did not know him intimately, except by 

 the examination of his extensive correspondence ; such 

 an examination cannot fail to raise the opinion formed of 

 him by the study of his published works, however high 

 that opinion may be." 



The letters, however, in the present volume, as might 

 be expected, bring out their author in a light which is to 

 many new and unexpected. To most persons that broad 

 forehead with its massive brow seemed indicative of in- 

 tellectual strength almost gigantic ; the square shoulders, 

 strong bones and muscles, the swinging gait — with which 

 as he swept along he seemed to shoulder aside weaker 

 men by the very waft of his passing — told of irresistible 

 force of will and energy of purpose ; tenderness of heart 

 seemed improbable in one of such Titanic mould ; one 

 deemed him a " man of iron," who, had he chosen a field 

 other than literature and science, might also have been 

 one of blood ; but, as we shall presently see, underneath 

 that rough exterior there was a warm and affectionate 

 heart concealed. 



Of the childhood of William VVhewell but few parti- 

 culars are recorded. A master-carpenter's son at Lan- 

 caster, he was on the point of quitting the Blue Coat 

 School in that town to be apprenticed to his father, when 



by a mere chance as it seemed — the head-master of the 



Grammar School entered into conversation with the boy, 

 and was so struck by his abilities that he persuaded the 

 father to let his son come to that school, generously ofler. 

 ing to give him both books and instruction. According 

 to Prof. Owen — probably his sole surviving schoolfellow 



the lad's indomitable spirit soon manifested itself, as 



well as his appetite for work. The latter indirectly raised 

 the standard of the school lessons, and the other boys 

 threatened to " wallop " him as the penalty for preparing 

 more than twenty lines of Virgil. Even then however 

 this was more easily said than done, and the " wallopers " 

 got as good as they gave, imtil public opinion in the 

 school decided that it was unfair for more than two boys 

 to attack him at once — "after the fate of the first pair, a 

 second was not found willing." Once only did Whewell 

 shock the moral feelings of his revered master, and that 

 was when an undergraduate at Trinity. The crime shall 

 be told in the master's own words : " He has gone and 

 o-ot the Chancellor's gold medal for some trumpery poem, 

 ' Boadicea,' or something of that kind, when he ought to 

 have been sticking to his mathematics. I give him up 

 now. Taking after his poor mother, I suppose." (She had 

 occasionally contributed to the " Poet's Corner "of the 

 local newspaper.) Mrs. Owen, to whom this complaint 

 was made, pacified the worthy man by remarking that 

 "young men must have some amusement, and this 

 seemed to be a very innocent one." 



Notwithstanding Dr. Whewell's strong frame he appears 

 to have suffered from some constitutional delicacy when 

 a lad. His mother — evidently a woman of ability and 

 culture above her station— died when he was thirteen ; his 

 father only survived to see him take a degree. A sister 

 also died young ; and of his three brothers two died in 



infancy and the other at the age of nine. Talent was 

 evidently hereditary in the family, for the little brother, 

 at seven years old, had begun to write English verses, 

 and one of his sisters habitually wrote poems. Of all 

 three of the latter, he says, when referring to his prize 

 poem, in a letter to his father, " I am happy in having 

 sisters who all of them have, I think, a more rational 

 taste for poetry and literature of all kinds than any other 

 girls in the same circumstances." 



It is very interesting to note the gradual change in 

 these letters. We see in them not only the unfolding of 

 his great intellectual powers as evidenced by the widening 

 circle of interests, but also the gradual expanding of the 

 moral nature. At first those addressed to his relations 

 and more intimate friends are a little stiff and cold, but 

 as sorrows succeed one another the religious element in 

 Dr. Whewell's character becomes more conspicuous, and 

 the later letters are marked by a depth of tenderness sur- 

 prising to those who only knew him slightly. He was 

 devotedly attached to his first wife, and almost heart- 

 broken by her loss. In one letter he describes himself as 

 taking no pleasure in success now that she was gone, and 

 tells his niece how, while he sat as Vice- Chancellor in the 

 Senate-house conferring degrees, he felt so lonely and 

 miserable that the tears kept trickling down his face ; " so 

 unlikely a thing in a Vice-Chancellor in his chair that 

 probably nobody saw it. I hope so." The writer of 

 this article, who received his degree on that occasion, 

 well remembers some of his friends commenting on the 

 Vice-Chancellor's obvious " sourness " of manner, and 

 wondering whether he was disgusted at the Senior 

 Wrangler being a man of a rival college. We little 

 thought that this was "none other than sorrow of heart." 

 After some time Dr. Whewell married again, his second 

 wife being Lady Affleck, sister of his friend Robert Leshe 

 Ellis. In her companionship he found great happiness, 

 but after about seven years of married life he was again 

 left alone. This time he appeared unable to rally from 

 the bereavement ; " the future which intervened between 

 him and the grave dismayed him by its dark desolation." 

 After this he visibly declined ; the torpor of age began to 

 steal over his faculties, and many thought that the years 

 of waiting would not be very many ; but they were briefer 

 than any expected. While still comparatively vigorous, 

 a fall from his horse caused fatal injury to the brain, and 

 after lingering for a few days, happily without much suffer- 

 ing, he died on March 6, 1866. 



"While life was ebbing fast away on that last 

 morning, blinds and curtains were drawn wide apart in 

 compliance with his wish that he might see the sun shine on 

 the Great Court of Trinity, and he smiled as he was re- 

 minded that he used to say the sky never looked so blue 

 as when seen fringed with its turrets and battlements. 

 Almost to the last he was conscious, and the last words 

 intelligibly uttered, when the striking of the clock roused 

 him as day dawned, were, 'The Eternal God is my 

 refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.' " 



The extraordinary comprehensiveness and versatihty 

 of Dr. Whewell's mind is fully depicted in the letters 

 published in Mr. Todhunter' s volume, but it is brought 

 out no less, perhaps even more, graphically by some of 

 the brief allusions in his familiar correspondence. This, 

 for example, is one taken from a letter to his sister : 

 " Besides my usual employments [as College Tutor and 



