86 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, vi 



41 North Bank, Regent's Park, 

 May 7, 1852. 



My dear Tyndall — Allow me to be one of the first to have 

 the pleasure of congratulating you on your new honours. I had 

 the satisfaction last night to hear your name read out as one of 

 the selected of the Council of the Royal Society for election to the 

 Fellowship this year, and you are therefore as good as elected. 



I always made sure of your success, but I am not the less 

 pleased that it is now a fait accompli. — I am, my dear Tyndall, 

 faithfully yours, T. H. Huxley. 



P.S. — I have heard nothing of Toronto, and I begin to think 

 that the whole affair, University and all, is a myth. 



His hopes of the Colonies failing, he tried each of the 

 divisions of the United Kingdom in turn, with uniform ill- 

 success ; in 1852-53 at Aberdeen and at Cork; in 1853 at 

 King's College, London. He had great hopes of Aberdeen 

 at first; the appointment lay with the Home Secretary, a 

 personal friend of Sir J. Clark, who was interested in Hux- 

 ley though not personally acquainted with him. But no 

 sooner had he written to urge the latter's claims than a 

 change of ministry took place, and other influences com- 

 manded the field. It was cold comfort that Clark told him 

 only to wait — something must turn up. There was still a 

 great probability of the Toronto chair falling to a Cork 

 professor; so with this in view, he gave up a trip to Cha- 

 mounix with his brother, and attended the meeting of the 

 British Associatioji at Belfast in August 1852, in order 

 to make himself known to the Irish men of science, for, as 

 his friends told him, personal influence went for so much, 

 and while most men's reputations were better than them- 

 selves, he might flatter himself that he was better than his 

 reputation. But this, too, came to nothing, and the King's 

 College appointment also went to the candidate who was 

 backed by the most powerful influence. 



A fatality seemed to dog his efforts; nevertheless he 

 writes at the end of 1851 : — 



Among my scientific friends the monition I get on all sides is 

 that of Dante's great ancestor to him— 



A te sequi la tua Stella. 



