334 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. X. 
office across the hall, ready to issue forth when 
Ford should give notice of the royal carriage. At 
a few minutes to three, R., who was in the dining- 
room laughing and talking with my father and 
mother, left the room with the gentlemen as they 
went to take their 23laces in the theatre, and just 
as he was going in at the hall door a carriage 
drove rajDidly up, and he was the only person in 
the way to receive Prince Albert, and so had to 
introduce the President to him as he and the 
others came bundling out of the office into the 
hall. The Prince joked a great deal about R. 
being the sea-serpent killer. After the oration 
the College gave a dinner — their first experiment 
of dining chez cux. All was brought from the 
I'reema.sons’, and the dessert, &c., was laid out 
(prei^aratively) in R.’s study. The Prince did not 
stay to dinner, but amongst the guests were 
Hallam, Sir R. Peel, Bishop of Oxford, Captain 
Sir Everard Home. When the Bishop had 
finished grace in his mild, quiet way, the toast- 
master, leaning forward as when giving out the 
toasts, said with a loud voice “ A-men.” On this 
unexpected response the Bishop’s mouth twitched, 
and he gave one comical look across to where R. 
sat. The speeches were of various qualities and 
quantities, but certainly the Captain’s (Sir Everard 
Home’s) was one of the best for its brevity, its 
simjde good sense, and its heartiness. He looks, 
as he has for the last thirty years, a big, fair, 
