176 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. vi. 



in the chair ! I can generally manage a " return " 

 for the Royal Society and Science, &c, but this 

 was a new departure. . . . Not long ago I met at 

 a dinner at Lord Leven's, Dhuleep Singh and his 

 wife, who was in grand Oriental costume. The 

 Maharajah is intelligent, and talked much to me 

 on the subject of fossils. The Maharanee is deci- 

 dedly pretty.' 



In the early spring of this year Owen gave 

 the inaugural lecture of a literary and scientific 

 society at Hampstead, ' Wayside Gatherings and 

 their Teachings.' This lecture was afterwards 

 printed in the July number of the ' Gentleman's 

 Magazine,' 1867. Extracts from it are subjoined, 

 as they may serve to show Owen's power of 

 extempore lecturing and of investing the com- 

 monest objects with interest and attraction. ' I 

 looked forward,' he begins, ' to leisure for some 

 preparation (for this lecture), but one pressing call 

 for work followed another until, being immersed 

 in the additional labours which this season entails 

 of annual summaries, stock-taking, and reports on 

 the year's increase to our vast and ever-growing 

 national Departments of Natural History, I found 

 myself suddenly driven so closely to the appointed 

 evening that I had no other resource but to 

 throw myself on your indulgence for such unpre- 

 meditated remarks as might be suggested by a 

 few common objects of natural history which I 

 hastily gathered together on my way, and have 



