XXXIX] HAMPDEN AND THE FLAT EARTH 375 



and adhere most absolutely and finally to their decision." — 

 "I will compel him to acknowledge that the curvature of 

 water which he and his dupes pretend was proved on the 

 Bedford Level, does not exist ! And this Mr. Wallace saw 

 with his own eyes." And so on in various forms of repetition 

 and abuse. To save trouble, I drew up a short circular 

 stating the main facts already given here for the information 

 of those who had received Hampden's absurdly false libels, 

 and thereafter took no further notice of him. 



One day about this time we happened to have several 

 friends with us, and as we were at luncheon, I was called to 

 see a gentleman at the door. I went, and there was Hamp- 

 den ! I was so taken aback that my only idea was to get rid 

 of him as soon as possible, but I afterwards much regretted 

 that I did not ask him in, give him luncheon, and introduce 

 him as the man who devoted his life to converting the world 

 into the belief that the earth was flat. We should at least 

 have had some amusement ; and to let him say what he had 

 to say to a lot of intelligent people might have done him 

 good. But such happy thoughts " come too late. He had 

 come really to see where I lived, and as our cottage and 

 garden at Godalming, though quite small, were very pretty, 

 he was able to say afterwards that I (the thief, etc.) was 

 living in luxury, while he, the martyr to true science, was in 

 poverty. 



He continued to circulate his postcards and tracts, and 

 to write to all manner of people, challenging them to prove 

 that the earth was not flat, for several years after. The last 

 of his efforts which I have preserved is an eight-page tract, 

 which he distributed at the Royal Geographical Society's 

 Exhibition of Geographical Appliances, in December, 1885, 

 in which he attacks all geographical teaching in his usual 

 style, and declares that " at the present moment they are 

 cowering beneath the inquiring gaze of one single truth- 

 seeker, John Hampden, the well-known champion of the 

 Mosaic cosmogony, as against the infidel theories and super- 

 stitions of the pagan mystics, who is, at the end of fifteen 

 years' conflict, still holding his ground against all the 



