ssed a night in a comfortless cave; the day was hot, and his weight
made a plod through deep snow necessarily fatiguing. We reached the
summit with considerable difficulty. On the descent he slipped above a
certain famous bergschrund; the fall of so ponderous a body jerked me
out of the icy steps, and our combined weight dragged down the guides.
Happily the bergschrund was choked with snow, and we escaped with an
involuntary slide. As we plodded slowly homewards, we expected that his
exhaustion would cause a difficulty in reaching the inn. But by the time
we got there he was, I believe, the freshest of the party. I remember
another characteristic incident of the walk. He began in the most
toilsome part of the climb to expound to me a project for an article in
the 'Saturday Review.' I consigned that journal to a fate which I
believe it has hitherto escaped. But his walks were always enjoyed as
opportunities for reflection. Occasionally he took a gun or a rod, and I
am told was not a bad shot. He was, however, rather inclined to complain
of the appearance of a grouse as interrupting his thoughts. In sport of
the gambling variety he never took the slightest interest; and when he
became a judge, he shocked a Liverpool audience by asking in all
simplicity, 'What is the "Grand National"?' That, I understand, is like
asking a lawyer, What is a _Habeas Corpus_? He was never seized with the
athletic or sporting mania, much as he enjoyed a long pound through
pleasant scenery. In this as in some other things he came to think that
his early contempt for what appeared to be childish amusements had been
pushed rather to excess.

I return to Cambridge. My brother knew slightly some of the leading men
of the place. The omniscient Whewell, who concealed a warm heart and
genuine magnanimity under rather rough and overbearing manners, had
welcomed my father very cordially to Cambridge and condescended to be
polite to his son. But the gulf which divided him from an undergraduate
was too wide to allow the transmission of real personal influence.
Thompson, Whewell's successor in the mastership, was my brother's tutor.
He is now chiefly remembered for certain shrewd epigrams; but then
enjoyed a great reputation for his lectures upon Plato. My brother
attended them; but from want of natural Platonism or for other reasons
failed to profit by them, and thought the study was sheer waste of time.
Another great Cambridge man of those days, the poeti