The beginning of Palmer’s education was of the most ordinary description, and little need be said about it. He was sent in the first instance to a private school, and afterwards to the Perse Grammar School. There he made rapid progress, arriving at the sixth form before he was fifteen; but all we hear about his studies is that he distinguished himself in Greek and Latin, and disliked mathematics. By the time he was sixteen he had learnt all that he was likely to learn at school, and was sent to London to earn his living. He became a junior clerk in a house of business in East-cheap, where he remained for three years, and might have remained for the term of his natural life, had he not been obliged to resign his situation on account of ill-health. Symptoms of pulmonary disease manifested themselves, and he got worse so rapidly that he was told that he had little hope of recovery. He returned to Cambridge, with the conviction that he had but a few weeks to live, and that he had better die comfortably among his relations, than miserably among strangers. But after a few weeks of severe illness he recovered, suddenly and strangely. Mr Besant tells a curious story, which Palmer is reported to have believed, that the cure had been effected by a dose of _lobelia_, administered by a herbalist. That Palmer swallowed the drug—of which, by the way, he nearly died—is certain, and that he recovered is equally certain; but that the dose and the recovery can be correlated as cause and effect is more than we are prepared to admit. We are rather disposed to accept a less sensational theory, expressed by a gentleman who at that period was one of his intimate friends: ‘Careful watchfulness on the part of his aunt, open air, exercise, and freedom from restraint, were the principal means of patching him up. He had frequent attacks of blood-spitting afterwards, and was altogether one of those wonderful creatures that defy doctors and quacks alike, and won’t die of the disease which is theirs by inheritance. How little any of us thought that he would die a hero!’