DAVIS : PRO. PHILLIPS. 9 
William Smith, of Churchill, in Oxfordshire. His father died 
when Phillips was seven years old, his mother sooij after ; and 
from that time he was under the charge of his uncle, a civil engi- 
neer in full j)ractise, known as " Strata Smith." 
At ten years of age, John Phillips was at a school at Holt- 
Spa, in Wiltshire, where a small microscope was given to him, and 
he speaks of the delight with which all natural objects were 
scrutinized by its magnifiers; he appears also to have been fond of 
athletic exercises, for he says, " When you see me now (^aA^Trtos 
/^aStfojv) tired with the ascent of Geo Fell and the rough path of 
the Zmutt Glacier, you will hardly credit me as the winner of many 
a race, and the first in many a desperate leap. My work at this 
school was incessant for five years. I took the greatest delight in 
latin, french and mathematics, and had the usual lessons in drawing. 
We were required to write a good deal of latin, especially our 
Sunday theme ;* of such, I wrote many for my idle associates. I 
worked through Mole's algebra and Simson's Euclid, the first two 
books completely, and selections from the others. The French 
master was a charming old Abbe, a refugee, whose patience and 
good nature and perseverance were quite above praise. We spoke 
and wrote french in abundauce. Of greek I learned merely the 
rudiments, to be expanded in after life. I did not work at 
german until some years later ; italian I merely looked at." 
On leaving school, Phillips accepted a twelve months invita- 
tion to the home of his ever-honoured friend, the Rev. Benjamin 
Richardson, of Farleigh Castle, One of the best naturalists in the 
West of England, a man of excellent education, and a certain 
generosity of mind, very rare and very precious. Educated in 
Christ Church, he retained much of the indefinable air of a gentle- 
man of old Oxford ; but mixed with this, there was a singular 
attachment to rural life and farming operations. Looking back 
through the vista of half a century, among the ranks of many kind 
and accomplished friends, I find no such man ; and to my daily and 
hourly intercourse with him, to his talk on plants, shells and 
