Reviews — Clark's Life of Sedgwick. 423 



time to the work, and fortunately secured the skilled help of Mr. 

 Clark, to whom we owe the greater portion of the two volumes. 

 Thus, more ample justice has been done to the life and times of 

 Sedgwick, than could have been the case with a less exhaustive 

 collection and consideration of the materials ; and there are many 

 who hold that the life of a man should not be published until at 

 least twenty-five years after his death. 



Not geologists alone, but all to whom biography has attraction, 

 will welcome these volumes, bringing before us as they do the chief 

 incidents in the life of " a Master among Philosophers " and " a 

 singularly genial and loveable man." The accounts which Sedgwick 

 himself has given of the manners and customs of the people oi Dent, 

 where he was born in 1785, form one of the most attractive portions 

 of the first volume. To this Yorkshire village he returned again 

 and again in after-life, ever regarding it with affection. In old times 

 " there was kept alive a feeling of fraternal equality " among the 

 several classes of inhabitants ; and while there still lived some who 

 had known Sedgwick in his youth, he never visited Dent without 

 hearing his Christian name uttered by the dalesmen. 



One of his early employments on a half-holiday during the period 

 he attended the Grammar School at Dent, was to collect the con- 

 spicuous fossils of the Mountain Limestone of his native valley. 

 While, however, these rambles aided to establish a taste for out-door 

 observations, it was many years before Sedgwick gave any systematic 

 attention to geology. Proceeding to Cambridge in 1804, he entered 

 Trinity College, and was admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts 

 in 1808, when his name stood fifth in the first class, or Wranglers. 

 We may pass briefly over his early college experiences, but it is 

 important to mention that he overworked himself in preparing for 

 his Fellowship examination, and the chronic ill-health from which 

 he suffered during the rest of his life may be traced to the strain he 

 endured during this period. For several years he was occupied as 

 Private Tutor and afterwards as Assistant Mathematical Tutor at 

 Trinity College. 



His wish had been to read for the Bar, but as it became necessary 

 to create an independence for himself as soon as possible, he was led 

 to enter the Church, for which, at the time, he had no very decided 

 inclination. Indeed, his resolution to read divinity was not at first 

 carried out with much vigour, for it appears that in the following 

 vacation Boswell's Life of Johnson was the only book that occupied 

 his attention. His work, however, at this time, whether mathematical 

 or theological, did not arouse his enthusiasm ; he felt his life to be 

 one of rather dull uniformity, while his health unfitted him, now 

 and in after-life, for long continued sedentary labour. During 

 holiday excursions in 1813 we find him visiting the iron-mines of 

 Furness and the copper-mines near Coniston ; but two years later, 

 at Dent, geology had not gained his affections, for he was constantly 

 out on the moors, where he " killed a good many birds." In 1817 

 he was ordained Deacon, and in the following year he was admitted 

 to Priest's Orders. 



