HOSPITALITY 261 



The Birds are doing beautifully. To my disgust 

 they dressed the Jay after Gyanurus cristatus instead 

 of the Greek form of Garrulus gtandarius. It does not 

 so much matter as people take it for a Roller, which 

 it might weU be had the ancients known that bird, 

 and it seems as if they didn't, at least they never 

 mentioned it.* 



It was, however, in his own rooms in College, the 

 old Master's Lodge, that Newton's'^ influence was most 

 widely felt. There he was at home to his friends every 

 Sunday evening during term time. After crossing the 

 bridge and passing the gate of Magdalene you came 

 immediately to what appeared to be a stable entrance 

 to a slippery and stony yard. Across the yard was a 

 narrow and ugly door, through which, after struggling 

 with a recalcitrant bell, you were admitted into a dark 

 passage leading into the Professor's rooms. Newton 

 delighted in hospitality and nearly always invited one 

 or more friends to dine with him on Sunday. If it was 

 your fortune to be a guest, you were bidden, rain or 

 no rain, to leave your College cap in his rooms, and 

 then you proceeded — "processed " is rather the word — 

 with him across the garden and through the hall to the 

 high table. Dinner was a heavy and thoroughly British 

 affair of roast beef or turkey and plum pudding, which 

 may have become irksome to the Fellows of the College, 

 who perforce dined there regularly, but it was interest- 

 ing to the infrequent visitor, who found that it agreed 

 well enough with the setting, and there was a charm 

 about Newton's courtly action of " taking a glass of 

 wine " with his guest and with others up and down the 

 table, which none of them is likely to forget. The con- 

 versation was sometimes almost startlingly in keeping 



* Letter to G. E. H. Barrett-HamUton, November 27, 1903. 



