120 
JOHN PHILLIPS, F.R.S. 
trained for the church, in which some of his relations had place, but 
this plan was not carried out. He came to England, was appointed 
an officer of excise, and married the sister of dear old Wm. Smith, of 
Churchill, in Oxfordshire. My first teachings were under his eye, 
and I may say hand, for he now and then employed the argumentum 
haculinum, though very gently. But he died when I was seven years 
old ; my mother soon after ; and my subsequent life was under the 
friendly charge of my gTeat relative, a civil engineer in full practice, 
known as ' Strata Smith.' "When I was nine years of age my uncle 
Smith took me by the hand while walking over some cornbrash fields, 
near Bath, and showed me the pentacrinite joints. He afterwards 
immersed them in vinegar to show the extrication of carbonic acid, 
and the flotation or swimming of the fossils. Before my tenth year, 
I had passed through four schools, after which I entered the long- 
forgotten but much-to-be-commended old school at Holt Spa, in 
Wiltshire, Lately I rode through the village, and was sorry to find 
the place deprived of all that could be interesting to me. 
At Holt School, a small microscope was given to me, and from that 
day I never ceased to scrutinize with magnifiers plants, insects and 
shells. In after-life this set me on making lenses, microscopes, 
telescopes, thermometers, barometers, electrophori, anemometers, 
and every kind of instrument wanted in my researches. When you 
see me now, xa-^eTrw? /SaSi^wv tired with the ascent of Gea Fell, and the 
rough path to Zmiitt 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 Simpson's Euclid, the first two 
books completely, and selections of 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 abundance ; of Greek I learned merely the rudiments to 
be expanded in after-life ; I did not work at German till some years 
later ; Italian I merely looked at. 
