12 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. i. 



return thanks for the visitors, which included 

 most of the distinguished medical men in town 

 who had been students at the Hospital. In 

 short, my reception was very gratifying to me. 

 It happened to be just thirty years that day 

 (October i, 1825) when I first made my entry as 

 a strange shy pupil in the Hospital yard and first 

 listened to good old Abernethy's introductory 

 lecture. It was just twenty years since (in the 

 progress of my development) I gave my first 

 lecture as Professor of Comparative Anatomy at 

 the Hospital (the first they had had in that 

 science), so I had some topics that raised con- 

 genial sentiments in many who had been pupils 

 at and before my day. . . .' 



In another letter, dated November 4, Owen 

 writes : — 



' I don't know whether I told you I had 

 enjoyed a holiday accompanying the Duke of 

 Cambridge and Colonel Liddell shooting in the 

 Park. The Duke is a fine tall man in the prime 

 of life, wearing the large and full beard and 

 moustaches which he let grow in the wars. He 

 chatted very freely with me in the intervals of the 

 shots, chiefly putting questions after the family 

 manner : asked how I went to town, the times of 

 the trains, the cost of the season ticket, &c. . . . 

 On Thursday I went to see, by invitation, the 

 photographs of the Crimea shown by gaslight ; 

 they marvellously exemplify the power of that 



