rTinT? 
20 
MEMOIR 
can most delightfully be made a fool of—in public, more¬ 
over !’ Or, again, when he writes to say that the date for his 
Schools is actually fixed, he proceeds: ‘I must confess to 
feeling very far from safe, and a Second, though disappoint¬ 
ing, is quite on the cards/ With what relief, then, does he 
announce on June 13, 1884, ‘List just out, and I am glad to 
say I have got a First. Moseley and Gamgee simply con¬ 
gratulated me on “the excellence of my work” instead of 
plying questions. I am only the third man who has ever got 
a First at the end of his third year in Biology!’ 
With a First Class to his credit, and with powerful backing 
from within his own College, Spencer was now fairly 
launched. Moseley immediately promised him some work, 
to begin next term as soon as he had refreshed his tired 
brains with a good long walk with Mackinder on the 
Continent. From the Rhine, the Black Forest, and Switzer¬ 
land he sends back letters full of impressions. He has ac¬ 
quired a new idea of colour which he hastily endeavours to 
reproduce in his sketches—‘but it was no good’. Back again 
in Oxford, he settles down with Mackinder in lodgings in 
Frewin Court. He has little cash in hand, but soon he ekes 
it out by coaching; ‘I have already two “pups”—two more 
than I expected.’ He longs for a Fellowship. ‘It must be 
extremely comfortable to have £200 for seven years. One 
could work more in peace than is possible now with the 
anxiety constantly present of how to get money enough.’ 
Meanwhile Moseley is losing an Assistant at Easter, and 
offers Spencer the post. A little later we read: ‘I am begin¬ 
ning some special original or quasi-original work which Ray 
Lankester suggested to me, and the great man promised to 
publish it for me.’ At the same time he is helping Professors 
Moseley and Tylor to remove the anthropological collections 
of General Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers from South Kensington to 
Oxford—a herculean task involving the labelling of some 
