18 
MEMOIR OF THE LATE ROBERT BALL, LL.D. 
The following extract from a letter dated 29th March indicates some 
of the subjects which then occupied his thoughts:— 
To Robert Patterson, JEsq. 
“ I am not an early riser, except under strong inducement. I feel 
usually so little refreshed by sleep that I find equal difficulty in getting 
up or going to bed.” “ I was only once free from the difficulty of 
getting up early: it was when a transient prospect opened of following 
out my own views of life; and I then, for four months, consumed hut 
six hours a day in sleep, dressing, &c. My work all went for nothing, 
and I fell hack to old habits again. During this time, when I was in 
earnest with life, I read twelve hours a day, and fulfilled my duties in 
various public offices; took sufficient exercise-time at meals, for the re¬ 
maining six; and I think never was so long free from indisposition of 
any kind. Thus, you see, I have in myself a good example; but I lack 
the spur of some special object. 
“Kew Zealand is again upon me, and two friends have been just 
with me on the subject. It would be painful to transport myself from 
cultivated minds for ever; and the eat-and-be-fed life you describe 
would not be according to my taste. But that proposed in Slew Zealand 
is not quite of this character. My great speculation there would be the 
improvement of the natives; a less profitable but more worthy object 
than the rearing of sheep.” 
Later in the year (July, 1840), Mr. Ball and I were fellow-lodgers 
at Plymouth, during the meeting of the British Association at that 
town. On one occasion we had the pleasure of visiting the Fish-market 
there—always a place of some interest to the naturalist—accompanied, 
by our friends, the Bev. Dr. Bobinson, of Armagh, and Thomas F. 
Bergin, Esq., of Dublin. We went on board the San Josef, were con¬ 
ducted round the dockyards, and witnessed the mechanical wonders 
there displayed.* We took an opportunity during our stay of having to 
' * Though familiar with the graphic lines of my townsman, Samuel Ferguson, Esq., 
entitled, “ The Forging of the Anchor,” I had never realized the full power of their rhythm 
until this day, when, after witnessing the whole process so vividly described, Dr. Robinson, 
on our leaving the forge, repeated part of the verse:— 
“And I see the good ship riding 
All in a perilous road, 
The low reef roaring on her lee ; 
The roll of ocean poured 
From stem to stern, sea after sea,— 
The mainmast by the board! 
The bulwarks down—the rudder gone— 
The boats stove at the chains; 
But courage still, brave mariners!— 
The bower yet remains.” 
Then, indeed, I learned how precious and enduring is the radiance which the words of the 
poet shed over the things of earth. 
