following inscription:--

THOMAE HUXLEY In Exercitatione Botanices Apud Scholam Collegii Sydenhamiensis Optime Merenti Hunc librum dono dedit RICARDUS D. HOBLYN, Botanices Professor.]

I dined with the company, and bore my share in both pudding and praise, but the charm of success lay in Lizzie's warm congratulation and sympathy. Since then she always took upon herself to prophesy touching the future fortunes of "the boy."

[The haphazard, unsystematic nature of preliminary medical study here presented cannot fail to strike one with wonder. Thomas Huxley was now seventeen; he had already had two years' "practice in pharmacy" as a testimonial put it. After a similar apprenticeship, his brother had made the acquaintance of the director of the Gloucester Lunatic Asylum, and was given by him the post of dispenser or "apothecary," which he filled so satisfactorily as to receive a promise that if he went to London for a couple of years to complete his medical training, a substitute should be appointed meanwhile to keep the place until he returned.

The opportunity to which both the brothers looked came in the shape of the Free Scholarships offered by the Charing Cross Hospital to students whose parents were unable to pay for their education. Testimonials as to the position and general education of the candidates were required, and it is curious that one of the persons applied to by the elder Huxley was J.H. Newman, at that time Vicar of Littlemore, who had been educated at Dr. Nicholas' School at Ealing.

The application for admission to the lectures and other teaching at the Hospital states of the young T.H. Huxley that "He has a fair knowledge of Latin, reads French with facility, and knows something of German. He has also made considerable progress in the Mathematics, having, as far as he has advanced, a thorough not a superficial knowledge of the subject." The document ends in the following confident words:--

I appeal to the certificates and testimonials that will be herewith submitted for evidence of their past conduct, offering prospectively that these young men, if elected to the Free Scholarships of the Charing Cross Hospital and Medical College, will be diligent students, and in all things submit themselves to the controul and guidance of the Director and Medical Officers of the establishment. A father may be pardoned, perhaps, for adding his belief that these young men will hereafter reflect credit on any institution from which they may receive their education.

The authorities replied that "although it is not usual to receive two members of the same family at the same time, the officers taking into consideration the age of Mr. Huxley, sen., the numerous and satisfactory testimonials of his respectability, and of the good conduct and merits of the candidates, have decided upon admitting Mr. J.E. and Mr. T. Huxley on this occasion."

The brothers began their hospital course on October 1, 1842. Here, after a time, my father seems to have begun working more steadily and systematically than he had done before, under the influence of a really good teacher.]

Looking back [he says] on my "Lehrjahre," I am sorry to say that I do not think that any account of my doings as a student would tend to edification. In fact, I should distinctly warn ingenuous youth to avoid imitating my example. I worked extremely hard when it pleased me, and when it did not, which was a very frequent case, I was extremely idle (unless making caricatures of one's pastors and masters is to be called a branch of industry), or else wasted my energies in wrong directions. I read everything I could lay hands upon, including novels, and took up all sorts of pursuits to drop them again quite as speedily. No doubt it was very largely my own fault, but the only instruction from which I obtained the proper effect of education was that which I received from Mr. Wharton Jones, who was the lecturer on physiology at the Charing Cross School of Medicine. The extent and precision of his knowledge impressed me greatly, and the severe exactness of his method of lecturing was quite to my taste. I do not know that I have ever felt so much respect for anybody as a teacher before or since. I worked hard to obtain his approbation, and he was extremely kind and helpful to the youngster who, I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had any right to do. It was he who suggested the publication of my first scientific paper--a very little one--in the "Medical Gazette" of 1845, and most kindly corrected the literary faults which abounded in it, short as it was; for at that time, and for many years afterwards, I detested the trouble of writing, and would take no pains with it.

[He never forgot his debt to Wharton Jones, and years afterwards was delighted at being able to do him a good turn, by helping to obtain a pension for him. But although in retrospect he condemns the fitfulness of his energies and his want of system, which left much to be learned afterwards, which might with advantage have been learned then, still it was his energy that struck his contemporaries. I have a story from one of them that when the other students used to go out into the court of the hospital after lectures were over, they would invariably catch sight of young Huxley's dark head at a certain window bent over a microscope while they amused themselves outside. The constant silhouette framed in the outlines of the window tickled the fancy of the young fellows, and a wag amongst them dubbed it with a name that stuck, "The Sign of the Head and Microscope."

The scientific paper, too, which he mentions, was somewhat remarkable under the circumstances. It is not given to every medical student to make an anatomical discovery, even a small one. In this case the boy of nineteen, investigating things for himself, found a hitherto undiscovered membrane in the root of the human hair, which received the name of Huxley's layer.

Speculations, too, such as had filled his mind in early boyhood, still haunted his thoughts. In one of his letters from the "Rattlesnake," he gives an account of how he was possessed in his student days by that problem which has beset so many a strong imagination, the problem of perpetual motion, and even sought an interview with Faraday, whom he left with the resolution to meet the great man some day on a more equal footing.]

March 1848.

To-day, ruminating over the manifold ins and outs of life in general, and my own in particular, it came into my head suddenly that I would write down my interview with Faraday--how many years ago? Aye, there's the rub, for I have completely forgotten. However, it must have been in either my first or second winter session at Charing Cross, and it was before Christmas I feel sure.

I remember how my long brooding perpetual motion scheme (which I had made more than one attempt to realise, but failed owing to insufficient mechanical dexterity) had been working upon me, depriving me of rest even, and heating my brain with chateaux d'Espagne of endless variety. I remember, too, it was Sunday morning when I determined to put the questions, which neither my wits nor my hands would set at rest, into some hands for decision, and I determined to go before some tribunal from whence appeal should be absurd.

But to whom to go? I knew no one among the high priests of science, and going about with a scheme for perpetual motion was, I knew, for most people the same thing as courting ridicule among high and low. After all I fixed upon Faraday, possibly perhaps because I knew where he was to be found, but in part also because the cool logic of his works made me hope that my poor scheme would be treated on some other principle than that of mere previous opinion one way or other. Besides, the known courtesy and affability of the man encouraged me. So I wrote a letter, drew a plan, enclosed the two in an envelope, and tremblingly betook myself on the following afternoon to the Royal Institution.

"Is Dr. Faraday here?" said I to the porter. "No, sir, he has just gone out." I felt relieved. "Be good enough to give him this letter," and I was hurrying out when a little man in a brown coat came in at the glass door. "Here is Dr. Faraday," said the man, and gave him my letter. He turned to me and courteously inquired what I wished. "To submit to you that letter, sir, if you are not occupied." "My time is always occupied, sir, but step this way," and he led me into the museum or library, for I forget which it was, only I know there was a glass case against which we leant. He read my letter, did not think my plan would answer. Was I acquainted with mechanism, what we call the laws of motion? I saw all was up with my poor scheme, so after trying a little to explain, in the course of which I certainly failed in giving him a clear idea of what I would be at, I thanked him for his attention, and went off as dissatisfied as ever. The sense of one part of the conversation I well recollect. He said "that were the perpetual motion possible, it would have occurred spontaneously in nature, and would have overpowered all other forces," or words to that effect. I did not see the force of this, but did not feel competent enough to discuss the question.

However, all this exorcised my devil, and he has rarely come to trouble me since. Some future day, perhaps, I may be able to call Faraday's attention more decidedly. Pergo modo! "wie das Gestirn, ohne Hast, ohne Rast" (Das Gestirn in a midshipman's berth!).

[In other respects also his student's career was a brilliant one. In 1843 he won the first chemical prize, the certificate stating that his "extraordinary diligence and success in the pursuit of this branch of science do him infinite honour." At the same time, he also won the first prize in the class of anatomy and physiology. On the back of Wharton Jones' certificate is scribbled in pencil: "Well, 'tis no matter. Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then?"

Finally, in 1845 he went up for his M.B. at London University and won a gold medal for anatomy and physiology, being second in honours in that section.

Whatever then he might think of his own work, judged by his own standards, he had done well enough as medical students go. But a brilliant career as a student did not suffice to start him in life or provide him with a livelihood. How he came to enter the Navy is best told in his own words.]

It was in the early spring of 1846, that, having finished my obligatory medical studies and passed the first M.B. examination at the London University, though I was still too young to qualify at the College of Surgeons, I was talking to a fellow-student (the present eminent physician, Sir Joseph Fayrer), and wondering what I should do to meet the imperative necessity for earning my own bread, when my friend suggested that I should write to Sir William Burnett, at that time Director-General for the Medical Service of the Navy, for an appointment. I thought this rather a strong thing to do, as Sir William was personally unknown to me, but my cheery friend would not listen to my scruples, so I went to my lodgings and wrote the best letter I could devise. A few days afterwards I received the usual official circular of acknowledgment, but at the bottom there was written an instruction to call at Somerset House on such a day. I thought that looked like