ty when
its annual medal was awarded to his French rival for his work in
constructing new tables of the sun and planets. It thus became his
duty to deliver the address setting forth the reasons for the award.
He did this with a warmth of praise for Leverrier's works which
could not have been exceeded had the two men been bosom friends.

Adams's intellect was one of the keenest I ever knew. The most
difficult problems of mathematical astronomy and the most recondite
principles that underlie the theory of the celestial motions were
to him but child's play. His works place him among the first
mathematical astronomers of the age, and yet they do not seem to do
his ability entire justice. Indeed, for fifteen years previous to
the time of my visit his published writings had been rather meagre.
But I believe he was justly credited with an elaborate witticism
to the following effect: "In view of the fact that the only human
being ever known to have been killed by a meteorite was a monk, we
may concede that after four hundred years the Pope's bull against
the comet has been justified by the discovery that comets are made
up of meteorites."

Those readers who know on what imperfect data men's impressions are
sometimes founded will not be surprised to learn of my impression
that an Englishman's politics could be inferred from his mental
and social make-up. If all men are born either Aristotelians or
Platonists, then it may be supposed that all Englishmen are born
Conservatives or Liberals.

The utterances of English journalists of the Conservative party about
American affairs during and after our civil war had not impressed
me with the idea that one so unfortunate as to be born in that
party would either take much interest in meeting an American or
be capable of taking an appreciative view of scientific progress.
So confident was I of my theory that I remarked to a friend with
whom I had become somewhat intimate, that no one who knew Mr. Adams
could have much doubt that he was a Liberal in politics.

An embarrassed smile spread over the friend's features. "You would
not make that conclusion known to Mr. Adams, I hope," said he.

"But is he not a Liberal?"

"He is not only a Conservative, but declares himself 'a Tory of
the Tories.'"

I afterward found that he fully justified his own description.
At the university, he was one of the leading opponents of those
measures which freed the academic degrees from religious