CAMBRIDGE. 



45 



taste was to draw conclusions from long-continued minute 

 observations. His judgment was excellent, and his whole 

 mind well balanced ; but I do not suppose that any one would 

 say that he possessed much original genius. He was deeply 

 religious, and so orthodox that he told me one day he should 

 be grieved if a single word of the Thirty-nine Articles were 

 altered. His moral qualities were in every way admirable. 

 He was free from every tinge of vanity or other petty feeling ; 

 and I never saw a man who thought so little about himself 

 or his own concerns. His temper was imperturbably good, 

 with the most winning and courteous manners ; yet, as I have 

 seen, he could be roused by any bad action to the warmest 

 indignation and prompt action. 



I once saw in his company in the streets of Cambridge 

 almost as horrid a scene as could have been witnessed during 

 the French Revolution. Two body-snatchers had been ar- 

 rested, and whilst being taken to prison had been torn from 

 the constable by a crowd of the roughest men, who dragged 

 them by their legs along the muddy and stony road. They 

 were covered from head to foot with mud, and their faces 

 were bleeding either from having been kicked or from the 

 stones ; they looked like corpses, but the crowd was so dense 

 that I got only a few momentary glimpses of the wretched 

 creatures. Never in my life have I seen such wrath painted 

 on a man's face as was shown by Henslow at this horrid 

 scene. He tried repeatedly to penetrate the mob ; but it 

 was simply impossible. He then rushed away to the mayor, 

 telling me not to follow him, but to get more policemen. I 

 forget the issue, except that the two men were got into the 

 prison without being killed. 



Henslow's benevolence was unbounded, as he proved by 

 his many excellent schemes for his poor parishioners, when 

 in after years he held the living of Hitcham. My intimacy 

 with such a man ought to have been, and I hope was, an 

 inestimable benefit. I cannot resist mentioning a trifling 

 incident, which showed his kind consideration. Whilst ex- 

 amining some pollen-grains on a damp surface, I saw the 



