Old Friends at Cambridge and ElsewhereClark, John Willis
History
Old Friends at Cambridge and Elsewhere
Clark, John Willis
University of Cambridge -- History
The inscription commemorating himself on the restored oriel window of
the Lodge[5]; the motto, _Lampada tradam_, which he adopted for his
arms; his differences with Her Majesty’s judges about their
entertainment at the Lodge; his attempts to stop the disorderly
interruptions of undergraduates in the Senate House; and a hundred other
similar matters, were all made occasions for unfavourable comment both
in and out of College. The comic literature of the day not unfrequently
alluded to him as the type of the College Don and the University Snob;
and in 1847, when he actively promoted the election of the Prince
Consort as Chancellor, a letter in the _Times_ newspaper, signed
‘Junius,’ informed Prince Albert that he had been made ‘the victim
chiefly of one man of notoriously turbulent character and habits. Ask
how HE is received by the University whenever he appears,’ &c.; and a
second letter, signed ‘Anti-Junius,’ affecting to reply to these
aspersions, described in ironical language, with infinite humour, ‘the
retiring modesty, the unfeigned humility, the genuine courtesy’ of the
‘honoured and beloved Whewell[6].’ We are happy to be able to say that
he outlived much of this obloquy; his temper grew gradually softer—a
change due partly to age, partly to the genial influence of both his
wives; and before the end came he had achieved respect, if not
popularity. The notion that he was arrogant and self-asserting may still
be traced in the epigrams to which the essay on _The Plurality of
Worlds_ gave occasion. Sir Francis Doyle wrote:
‘Though you through the regions of space should have travelled,
And of nebular films the remotest unravelled,
You’ll find, though you tread on the bounds of infinity,
That God’s greatest work is the Master of Trinity.’
Even better than this was the remark that ‘Whewell thinks himself a
fraction of the universe, and wishes to make the denominator as small as
possible.’ These, however, were harmless sallies, at which he was
probably as much amused as any one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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