the lava on foot. It was so hot in places that we had
to make detours to avoid it.
"The ascent of the cone is most fatiguing ā you have
to clamber up loose cinders, which give way perpetually.
This lasts for some 40 mins., and then you reach a toler-
ably level plain of sulphur, on which are the two craters
of 1849 and 1858, the latter by far the larger. Both
emit smoke. Occasionally we heard a noise like thunder,
preceding from the fall of huge masses of rock into the
crater. Beyond this plain ri.ses the actual summit, a low
])yramid, from which the descent is a sheer precipice on
the side towards Pompeii. On the other it descends to
We7ttworth 95
the old crater, now filled up ā which was active before
these two later ones were opened. The descent was very
rapid down the steep slope of ashes. We spent some
time in watching the lava as night closed in. It caught
a young tree, whose root was speedily burnt through, and
down it fell into the burning torrent, which was falling
down so steep a slope as to look very much like a fiery
cascade."
J.'s regular diary dates from 1860, and by this time he must
have become Tutor to Lord Milton, eldest son of the sixth
Earl Fitzwilliam, and father of the present Earl, for on the
third day of the new year we find him returning from Went-
worth to Cambridge. It was at Wentworth that he developed
his taste for hunting. The entries are short and for the most
part trivial : " rode with W.," " hunted with the X. hounds,"
" went to the Y. Ball," or " dined with the Z.'s." The first
really serious record is on " Thursday, 23rd February. ā Con-
gregation : Sermons at St. Mary's on Sunday mornings
abolished." The following month he read his first paper ā one
before the Cambridge Architectural Society ā on the " Annals
of All Saints' Church," ^ and in March he lectured before the
same Society on " The Roman Catacombs." His interest in
architecture and archaeology was already keen, and he was
taking an active part on the Committee then occupied with
the restoration of the Octagon at Ely Cathedral. Part of June
was spent yachting off' the south coast with the Fitzwilliams,
and in August, accompanied by Lord Milton, he started for
a trip to the Faroes and Iceland. A somewhat arid account
of this journey was published in 1861, in a volume entitled
Vacation Touiists and Notes of Travel in 1860, edited by Mr.
Francis Gallon.
Late in the autumn he was back at home, and the usual
short entries for the ensuing winter in his diary are confined
to recording where he dined or danced, or with what pack he
hunted ; still he was occasionally working at the Museum ; for
instance, the entry for 18 January 1861, is "At the Museum.
1 Ecclesiologist, 1860.
96 y. as a bachelor
Prince of Wales ^ arrived 3 p.m." Six days later J. dined at
Magdalene, to meet Charles Kingsley, who had been made
Regius Professor of History, an appointment not entirely un-
connected with the Prince's residence at the University. Part
of this year he spent in an extended tour in Switzerland and
Italy. Lord Milton accompanied him, and for part of the
time J.'s friend, David Powell, who was on a sketching tour in
Italy, joined the party. J. was very intimate with all the
Powell family. David was now up at Trinity; and later on
when Henry came into residence (1864-1868) J. looked after
him as if he had been his own younger brother.
The following describes an episode common enough in the
early sixties, but none the less unpleasant : ā
La Spezzia, IQth September 1861.
"Now I must tell you my adventure. Between here
and Sestri you must know that the road leaves the coast,
by reason of certain inaccessible cliffs, and strikes inland
across a lofty Pass. From the top of this a road goes to a
place on the coast called Levanto, and thence a path leads
to another village called Monterosso, at both of which
there are very ancient and curious Churches. From
Monterosso a path leads into the highroad again, about
3 miles from here. So I left Powell at the top to go
on to Spezzia, went to my villages, saw the Churches
and the people, who were not the least curious part
of the sight, and got into the road again between
6 and 7 in the evening. Having gone along it for a mile
or so, I can)e to a village, when a Brigadiere, a sort of
superior policeman, who is captain of the parties of
Carabinieri stationed all about the country, came forward
and asked for my passport. It is needless to say that,
after all the Italians have said officially about the Heed-
lessness of passports, and having never been asked for
mine since I came into Italy, I had sent it on with the
luggage, I suppose he thought me a suspicious person,
for he would not take my word that I was an Englishman,
but made me come with him to the barrack-room, where
he wrote a note to the Mayor to ask what to do with me.
' Kinj? Eflward MI, who spent the year 18G1 at Cambridge, living at
Madinglcy Hall.
I demanded to see the Mayor, and telling him, as we
walked along, that he had better mind what he was about,
he got so angry that he took me back at once, and put me
in a filthy cell, pitch dark, where some deserters had been
lodged. Presently back came the answer from the Mayor,
that " for greater security " I had better be detained.
Then I asked to be allowed to send a messenger to Spezzia
for the passport, but this he refused to allow. I got leave,
however, to send for it very early in the morning. Then
I begged for a cleaner room, and finally got changed into
one where I had two tame rabbits for companions. Being
duly locked and barred in, I was left for the night. The
soldiers were extremely kind, and g-^ve me fruit, and a
pillow which they shoved through the bars. About 7 a.m.
Powell and the passport came. He, it appeared, had not
even been asked for his, so then I flew at the fellow, and
gave him my mind. On getting to Spezzia I went at
once to the Consul, who is Lever the Novelist; he has
taken the matter up warmly. By great good-luck Sir
James Hudson, our Ambassador at Turin, is coming here in
a day or two, and, by threatening to lay the matter before
him, Lever has frightened the authorities into vigour. I
shall know more before I write again as to what will be
done. Probably a good deal, as the Italians just now know
how important it is to be civil to the English. Now
that we have seventeen ships of the line at Naples, we are
not people to be rashly put in prison with tame rabbits."
A fortnight later J. was writing to his mother that Lord
Fitzwilliam had suggested that he should accompany Lord
Milton to the United States. J. gives his reasons for declining
the offer, and amongst them is that ā
" I have so much work to do before the British Associa-
tion meets in September that, even supposing I did go, I
could only stay three months. Furthermore, I said I could
give no answer till I had talked to Papa about it. I own it
would be great to visit America, now that they are at sixes
and sevens ā immense fun ā but / can agire to no plan that
will prevent my having our Museum in first-rate order
hy September.''''
It is just as well J. remained this side of the Atlantic.
6
98 y, as a ^achelo?^
He would not have liked the United States, and he would
have said so. As it was, he busied himself with parochial
affairs in Cambridge.
A perennial source of complaint amongst the members of
any College is dinner ā either the quality or the hour is
perpetually under discussion and the subject of petitions to
the powers that control such matters. In 1862 there was a
successful agitation at Trinity to place the hour of dinner
(then at 4 p.m.) later, and J. wrote a reasoned and moderate
pamphlet in support of the change. Since it reveals a state of
things very different from that obtaining at present, I quote a
couple of paragraphs : ā
" For a majority of Undergraduates, the morning is
terminated by a Professor's lecture. Attendance upon
these is necessary for those who intend to take Holy
Orders, as well as Candidates for the ordinary B.A.
Degree. These lectures are all given at a comparatively
late hour, and necessarily so, to suit the College Lectures
and the arrangements of Private Tutors. To take the
Lent Term of 1862 alone, I find the following hours set
down in the Schedule :
The Regius Professor of Divinity. 1 p.m.
The Professor of Chemistry. 2 p.m.
The Plumian Professor of Astronomv. 1| p.m.
The Professor of Anatomy. \^ p.m.
The Lowndean Professor of Astronomy. 1\ p.m.
The Professor of Mineralogy. 2 p.m.
The Disney Professor of Archaeology. 1 p.m.
"Of these the Professors of Divinity, Anatomy, and
Archaeology finish their lectures about 2.15 p.m. : those of
Chemistry, Astronomy, and Mineralogv, between 3 and
3.15 P.M. : so that those Undergraduates who attend the
former, get about an hour and three-quarters for exercise ;
those who attend the latter, from one hour to three-
quarters of an hour."
The following year J. stayed in England, but made long
excursions in the Lakes, and in Wales and the West Country,
sketching and collecting plants. But he was now becoming more
Work in London 99
sei'ious : he notes in his diary that Dr. Luard, his predecessor
in the office of Registrary, " had 396 votes, whereas his opponent
Mr. Power had but 253"; he records on the 20th January
1863, " Dr. Humphry"'s lectures began," which is probably a
hint that his father's health was beginning to fail. J. was now
beginning to look about him for something definite to do, and
in September of 1863 he obtained the offer of a post at a
salary of ,^350 a year, as General Managing Editor in the
establishment of Messrs. Cassell, Petter, & Galpin, the well-
known publishers. About this time he was spending a good
deal of time in London, living with his great friend Frank
Campbell, brother of the present Mrs. Pemberton of Trumping-
ton, and was doubtless writing for his firm. He brought out
an edition of Robinson Crusoe, and, in collaboration with Canon
Teignmouth Shore, an edition of Don Quixote, but on all this
the diaries are, and J. was himself, as silent as the grave. Those
few friends who recollect the time have a misty notion that J.
was not happy in the business of publishing, and he did not
endure it long, resigning in the early spring of 1865. A
near relative, however, tells me that he was really interested
in his Loudon work, and often told Mrs. J. that though he
gave it up from a sense of duty to his father, it was a great
sacrifice at the time, and one that he was long in getting over.
As was proper to his temperament and his time of life,
J. was now from time to time falling in love, and then scram-
bling; out again. Into these affairs we need not enter, but
the first indication of his friendship with the family into
which he ultimately so happily married occurs in the diary
for the year 1864 ā an unusually meagre journal, wherein four-
teen entries suffice for the whole year. During the spring of
this year he visited Germany, and, after staying at Leipzig and
Dresden, reached Berlin on April 1st, " saw Buchanan," ^ and
^ This, I gather, was Edwai'd Buchanan, for whom he had formed a
strong undergraduate friendship^ and who died in 1870. After him J.'s
elder son was iiamed. Edward Buchanan's father was then our Ambas-
sador at Berlin.
lOO y. CIS a bachelor
the next two or three days he dined at the Embassy every
night.
During this year Great St. Mary's Church was re-seated,
and as the change was considerable, and J. was much
interested in it, I quote his account of the abolition of the
Doctors' Gallery : ā
"This wonderful gallery, officially termed 'the Throne' or
' the Doctors' Gallery,"" but by a rather profane, and very silly,
pun, always spoken of familiarly as Golgotha, was a large
room. It occupied the whole width, and about half the
length, of the chancel, and was fitted with seats rising in tiers
one above the other. The back was formed of large panels of
oak. The Vice-Chancellor sat in a capacious arm-chair in the
centre of the front row. It should be mentioned that the
tower-arch also was blocked by the organ, which had a gallery
in front of it. This latter aflected to be of stone, and in the
Gothic style, but was really of plaster. When a popular
preacher occupied the pulpit, and the church was quite full, it
must be admitted that the effect was good, and members of the
University could see and hear exceedingly well. But those
who had planned the ari'angement had forgotten, or did not
care to remember, that a church is built for other purposes
than to hear sermons in, and Archdeacon Hare did not speak
too strongly when he called St. Mary's ' an example of the
world turned topsy-turvy.' However, when the late energetic
Vicar, the Rev. H. R. Luard, undertook to get ' Golgotha ' and
its accompanim,ents removed, he encountered much vexatious
opposition from all parties interested in the church. The old
difficulties in obtaining funds were renewed. It took ten years
to get ^3300 together ; and the present excellent and decorous
arrangements were not completed until 1864."
Professor Clark had been failing in health for some time, and
in November 1865 he resigned the Professorship of Anatomy.
He was succeeded early in the following year by Dr. (later
Sir George Murray) Humphry on the Human Anatomy side,
and by Alfred Newton on the Zoological side. J. was then
The 3^11 sell 7ns loi
(1866) formally appointed Superintendent of the Museum of
Comparative Anatomy, which, as he tells the Electoral Roll in
his letter of application, " has been under my charge . . . for
the last four years." He was also appointed at the same time
a member of the newly-formed Museums and Lecture Rooms
Syndicate. Later he became Secretary to the Syndicate, and held
both offices until he became Registrary twenty-five years later.
J. continued to use his rooms in Trinity, but to an ever-
decreasing extent. Owing to his declining health, Dr. Clark
went less and less into society, and J. was more and more at
Scroope House, helping his mother to maintain the hospitable
traditions of the place. As J. could not see his way to
take Holy Orders, his Fellowship came to an end this year,
but he was allowed to retain his rooms in College for several
years later, as he was understood to be working at the Col-
lege records ; and indeed he did work at them from time to
time, but, except as regards those which relate to the buildings,
little came of it. Shortly before his death all these records
were fully calendared and returned to the Trinity Muniment
Room. For a few months he acted as Librarian at Trinity,
being Deputy for the Librarian, who was away, and as the
following extract from a letter to his friend, Charles Gray,
Vicar of West Retford, shows, he was also doing other work for
his College : ā
%th July 18G6.
" This place is very quiet. I have got a great deal to
do in the Museums, which I think it politic to get done as
soon as possible : that when I am free nothing may impede
a continued absence on the continent. Also Sedley Taylor ^
has delegated to me no sinecure. The looking after all
these alterations entails incessant labour ā and what with
Arthur,^ the Master, and the Seniority my hands are
quite full. The Hall will be wonderful. I hope to carry
^ J. was now acting as Junior Bursar for a time, as Deputy to Mr.
Sedley Taylor, and the Great Combination Room was then done up under
his direction, as well as the Hall.
^ The well-known decorator.
I02 y. as a bachelor
a new system of lighting ā a great effect in brasswork.
The M[agister] C[ollegii] is favourable. I have been to Ely
to-day to confer with that great man. The Bishop was ill
ā knocked up with the Conference of Rural Deans, of
which the M.C. gave a very sarcastic account.
" Are not these public events almost past belief? I am
delighted on the whole ā especially at the magnificent
position Napoleon has achieved, really by sheer force of
superior intellect. And we are very rightly served in
being completely left out. As a thorough Italian, I feel
bound to sympathise with Prussian successes : and I am so
thankful for the upset of Hanover, Darmstadt, Nassau,
ike. There will be fewer Germans for our Royal people to
marry.
"People dine in Combination Room, I am told, in a
Christian manner. I am going to order matting- for it
to-morrow. Only fancy, they had taken up the carpet,
and Hoppett, &c., went clumping about on the bare
boards like so many ponies ! "
As Mr. Gray writes, J. " was always ' after ' improving
things ā the finances of the A.D.C., the lighting of the Hall,
the warming of the Trinity Library," when he was acting
librarian. Mr. Gray rightly adds, "Think what that cost in
overcoming centuries of prejudice ! " In 1866 he was also
warming, and, as the letter already quoted shows, decorating
the Hall. The idea of putting a large tent in Nevile's Court
for a Ball, when the Prince and Princess of Wales visited
Cambridge in 1865, was also his, and he carried out many of
the details connected therewith.
In fact, in the middle of the sixties J. was still "planning
this and planning that," and had not " found himself." To his
now failing father he was somewhat of a disappointment, and
they differed a good deal about money matters. When I
knew him, J. was in this matter so careful that he entered in a
book each stamp he used for the A.D.C. and for the many
other organisations he managed, and although he ever exercised
a rather splendid hospitality, and could be at times, as I have
said before, most generous, he never would tolerate waste.
Lord Desart 103
Here I may interpolate an appreciation kindly written for
me by Lord Desart, who as Hamilton Cuffe was at Trinity
from 1866 to 1869:ā
" I went up to Trinity in October 1866, and shortly after
my arrival was elected a Member of the A.D.C., where
I first met J. W. Clark, who had just ceased to be a Fellow
of the College. I had, before going to Cambridge, fre-
quently acted in private theatricals, and to J. W. a love
for acting and some knowledge of the Drama constituted
ties which obliterated differences of age and position. His
interest in the A.D.C. and in the Undergraduates who
took part, or desired to take part, in the performances
was intense, and mine was only one among many cases in
which membership of the A.D.C. led to an acquaintance
which developed year by year into the closest ties of
friendship. J. W."s enthusiasms in many directions were
inspiring, and his manner of expressing them sometimes
rather overpowering, while the charm to a young man of
the total absence of anything approaching ' side' or asser-
tion of his position, and of the terms of perfect equality
on which he met the youngest undergraduate, was great
indeed. We never thought of him as a Don, but as one
of ourselves ā and it was only when in conversation we
realised the breadth of his thought and the range of his
learning, that we fully appreciated the value of the gift
of his friendship.
" At his mother's hospitable table at Scroope House,
before he married, and in his and his cultivated and
devoted wife's house later on, we who were privileged to
be his friends met not only our contemporaries but former
undergraduates and resident fellows, of whom I princi-
pally recall Prof. Newton, Mr. Percy Hudson (now Canon
Pemberton), and my distinguished friend still with us,
Dr. Henry Jackson.
" J. W. was at that time ' Superintendent ' (I think that
was the name of his office) of the Museum of Zoology
and Comparative Anatomy, and he often gave any of us
who cared for it the privilege of a morning there among
his subjects, and brought for us dry bones to life.
" I left Cambridge in 1869. Afterwards, when at the
Bar, I always stayed with him on Circuit at Cambridge,
104 y' ^^ ^ bachelor
and frequently at other times, till his death, while we
often met in London.
"His family life was perfect, as it seemed to me.
His fount of perennial youth never failed, and to young
or old he was the equal in age, with the same interests
and enthusiasms as those when I first knew him ā the
same unselfishness and desire of making others happy ā
with the gift for attaining that end.
" Of his University career I can say little of my own
knowledge, but he often talked to me of it, and I know
that the work was to him no mere duty, but an earnest
desire for the best that could be attained. He was an
eager controversialist and did not spare opponents, but
I do not think differences of opinion ever led to personal
bitterness against him, for anything he said or did in his
public life was the outcome of obvious sincerity and desire
to do what was right without any touch of personal ambi-
tion, or seeking of personal ends.
" His high character, his personal charm, his many
interests, made his friendship to me among my most
valued possessions, and I doubt whether there was any
man at Cambridge of his time whose close friends could
be found to range over so wide an area, or to include
men belonging to so many generations of those who had
passed through the University."
In the summer of 1867, J. went with Henry Powell to
Paris, where as usual he spent several days dining and visiting
the Fran^^ais ; later they made a short tour in Normandy, and
returned in time to attend David Powell's wedding in July.
During these years he saw a good deal of Sir William
(then Mr.) Flower, Curator of the Museum of the Royal College
of Surgeons, later Director of the Natural History Depart-
ment of the British Museum, who, by the way, subsequently
shared with Henry Powell the responsibility of being god-
father to J.^'s second boy, Willy. J. and Flower were always
on the best of terms, and were mutually helpful in many ways.
Other zoologists who visited him from time to time, and who
took a lively interest in his Museum, were Professor Rolleston
of Oxford, Mr. O. Salvin, Dr. Giinther of the British Museum,
He7i?y yackson 105
Dr. P. L. Sclater, Secretary of the Zoological Society, Professor
Boyd Dawkins, Colonel H. W. Feilden, and Professors Marsh
and Agassiz from the United States, Mr. Du Cane God man, and
many others. Other helpful friends in his Museum work were
Professor Milne Edwards of the Jardin des Plantes, Professor
Gervais, and Professor Perrier, and J. seldom visited Paris
without seeing them.
There are many who have very pleasant memories of travel
with J. Professor Henry Jackson writes : ā
"J. was a quite delightful travelling companion. In
the earlier part of the long vacation of 1868 I had been
with my friend and colleague, Mr. Joseph Prior, first
at Marienbad, where he took the waters and dieted, and
later at Ischl, where he recruited after the cure. Towards
the end of August, J. joined us on the way to Vienna;
and in that delightful capital we spent eight or nine days.
We saw Faust and Lucrezia Borgia at the old opera-house,
and Torquato Tasso, Marie Stuart, and Ad?'ienne Lecou-
vreur at the Hof burg theatre. We frequented the great
picture galleries. We visited the gardens of Schonbrunn.
Under the guidance of a friendly professor we walked to
the Leopoldsberg, and saw the panorama of the Danube.
Presently Prior left us to go home, and J. and I started
for Graz and Trieste. Our scheme had been to go to
Corfu ; but we found that, if we were to do so, we should
have to wait a week or more for a boat; so we revised our
plans, and crossed the Adriatic to Venice.
" I think that we were there no more than four or five
days : but J. knew Venice well, and he was a born cicerone.
We saw a great deal ; and, what is more, we saw it com-
fortably. I never felt that I was being hustled. The
truth is that J.'s talent for organisation served him well
in travel as in everything else. In planning the order of
the day's sight-seeing he was as careful as he was in put-
ting a play upon the stage : and there was the same atten-
tion to scenic effect. For example, he contrived that I
should have my first view of St. Mark's from a particular
angle of the piazza. (In the same way at Rome, bringing
me from behind the Palazzo del Senatore, he exclaimed,
' That is the Forum ! ' I regret to say that in this instance
io6 y. as a bachelor
the coxip de tJudtre was unsuccessful : for at that time the
authorities were busily manufacturing antiquities on the
spot, and I was brutal enough to answer : ' That stone-
mason's yard?') At Venice, as indeed everywhere, we
thought first and chiefly of pictures : but we found time
to go to Murano, and even to remote, lonely, primitive,