1852-1856 227 myself understood, and to impress truths on rude minds ; and I should feel at a loss how to speak to men and women of culture and of active intelligences. I am, moreover, absolutely happy in being left alone with my Lew people, and not called off elsewhere. What Scot ever went against his own interest ? We met on Sundays for Communion at S. Giles's Church. It was the only one in Cambridge where there was a weekly celebration of the Eucharist. The church was so hideous, so deformed and defaced, that eventually it was pulled down and re-erected in proper style. The vicar was named Uodd. He had been inhibited for three years by Turton, Bishop of Ely, because he had refused to read the burial service over a drunken blaspheming ruffian, who had tumbled into the River Cam and been drowned, when in a state of intoxication. Dodd sat in a pew, in his cassock and gown, but took no part in the service. One of my contemporaries, not a member of our society, was troubled in his conscience about some matter, and went to the Dean of his college to " open his grief," and to obtain a solution of his difficulties. " Conscience ! Trouble of conscience ! " exclaimed the Dean. " Take a glass of good old tawny port. If it continues, take a second. Should it not then subside, my dear fellow, take a third." At Clare we had one sermon preached in term time by the Master, each year; on the same Sunday we were given the fable of the hare and tortoise as an encouragement to those who were not brilliant to be diligent in work. The churches round Cambridge were largely served by Fellows of the Colleges, who rode out on the Sunday morning, rattled through matins, litany and ante-communion service, gave a sermon without unction, ate a lunch of sandwiches they had brought with them, drank some sherry, wiped their mouths, and rattled through Evening Prayer. That accomplished they hurried back to dinner in Hall at 4 p.m. and then to port and scandal in the combination-room. Whilst I was at Clare, there came to Cambridge an American lecturer upon electrobiology, named Fish. I attended his first lecture and sat in the front row below the platform. He put into each of our left hands a metal disc, composed of zinc and copper,
