12 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. I. 
return thanks for the visitors, which included 
most of the distinguished medical men in town 
who had been students at the Hospital. In 
short, my reception was very gratifying to me. 
It happened to be just thirty years that day 
(October i, 1825) when I first made my entry as 
a strange shy pupil in the Hospital yard and first 
listened to good old Abernethy’s introductory 
lecture. It was just twenty years since (in the 
progress of my development) I gave my first 
lecture as Professor of Comparative Anatomy at 
the Hospital (the first they had had in that 
science), so I had some topics that raised con- 
genial sentiments in many who had been pupils 
at and before my day. . . .’ 
In another letter, dated November 4, Owen 
writes : — 
^ ‘ I don’t know whether I told you I had 
enjoyed a holiday accompanying the Duke of 
Cambridge and Colonel Liddell shooting in the 
Park. The Duke is a fine tall man in the prime 
of life, wearing the large and full beard and 
moustaches which he let grow in the wars. He 
chatted very freely with me in the intervals of the 
shots, chiefly putting questions after the family 
manner : asked how I went to town, the times of 
the trains, the cost of the season ticket, &c. 
On Thursday I went to see, by invitation, the 
photographs of the Crimea shown by gaslight; 
they marvellously exemplify the power of that 
