Cambridge University 'is a vile university and the vice chancellor is a damned vice chancellor. - But if possible I will waste no more time in exclamations and give you the facts - scene - Union debating Room - Time - six o'clock. - Knock at door - silence - enter the red round idiot head & turkey cock breast of Okes [William Okes] - Hon. gentlemen stare - enter the inflexibly meek countenance & proctorial smile of French [William French] - stare wider - Okes running himself against the table & addressing the president. "Vice Chancellor sent us to say he don't like these societies - all to go home". French "The Vice Chancellor desires you to disperse & to meet no more". - Pres. requests the messengers to withdraw that soc. may consider of it - "No - not a subject for your consideration - you must oblige" - so the vice chancellor dislikes these societies - but suppose we reject political subjects - will he let us discuss literary ones - "Can't say - no authority - but V.C. is in the house we will mention"[.] [Says] again "no societies at all to be allowed - all to disperse". But we must finish this meeting - we have financial matters - V.C. is here - you will let us send a deputation to him - Whewell - Thirlwall [Connop Thirlwall] - Sheridan [Charles B. Sheridan] - ushered into a room - V.C. in full silks - head white[,] face red & ugly. - Jackson in the background - Red nose of [Hornbuckle?] sticking across the room - and o sorrow & shame! Monk [James H. Monk] - (Why the devil - fool as he was - did he not let it be a Johnian business as it deserved to be) - "We are told you have an objection to our debates - want to know how far it goes - literary subjects?" "No sir - they are against the statutes - all meetings at regular times for the purpose of debate are - hum - haw - hum irregular - and you have only three years - you have other things to do - you take too much upon you - your knowledge[,] your reading[,] your minds are not proper food..." "I am afraid we are not to be allowed to consider the reasons - we must submit to the authority" A move at the word authority "But the case must have been exaggerated - two or three hours a week" "Sir I have had a letter from a person who once belonged to the society and who says that his prospects have been ruined & that the prospects of several of his friends have been ruined by the time and attention he has bestowed on the Society." "Very unfortunate - but it is impossible this can be common." "Sir it is against the statutes - you must disperse." But we may retain our reading room - and continue our present debate - granted. - Long debate - all manner of motions - Remonstrances proposed. - Committee - Whewell - Thirlwall - Sheridan - Lawson - Lodge - My Lord Chief Justice a fool as usual and apparently somewhat frightened. - Committee met today. Now what think you of this? - It is not yet decided what is to be done but of course there must somehow or other, a great noise be made. Do you not think it would do good to write to Clarke & inflame him about it. - And to write to some of the newspapers - it has been proposed to petition the chancellor - write immediately and tell me what you think. - I have done nothing for Lacroix [Silvestre F. Lacroix] yet but we will talk of that another time'.
Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies
Cards re committees to consider formation of an International Union in Radio-Telegraphy, and an International Union in Mathematics.
Deschamps
Forced to move pew, held a party for missionary day: Wallington,
Translation into Ancient Greek of Tennyson's Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur, lines 133-146. Labelled on the back of the sheet '''16' [in pencil]. 'Gk Verse Comp. Benson | (Fellowship Examination Oct. 1852)'. Annotated [by Francis Martin?] in another ink '1852 | The actual Exercise sent up purloined (!) by Fra. Martin one of the Examiners'.
Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall.—Encloses a cheque for the Clifford fund.
(With an envelope.)
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Transcript
Athenæum Club, Pall Mall
7th April 1876
Dear Mr Pollock—I enclose cheque (£5) for the Conspiracy Fund. I would do the same over again if a fresh application is found necessary. I am very glad that the thing has been undertaken and think that nothing too much can be done that may tend to the preservation of so valuable a life.
Believe me,
Yours very truly
J. J. Sylvester
[Direction on envelope:] F. Pollock Esqr | 12 Bryanston St | Portman Square | W
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The envelope was postmarked at London, S.W., and London, W., on 7 April 1876, and is marked ‘Sylvester’ in a later hand.
Folder also includes miscellaneous notes on the literature.
University of Aberdeen Examination Book containing descriptions and diagrams of apparatus, notes of experimental results
Includes correspondence re electron diffraction. 1935, 1945
Most of the letters are from people noted in the fields of literary studies and bibliography.
All these items relate personally to R. B. McKerrow, except those described as printed. Most of the rest are printed forms filled up by hand.
Items C1/15-37 were kept in a file marked "Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy" with the word 'Mathematics' struck through Notwithstanding the deletion, it does contain some mathematical material. The use of St Andrews examination stationery suggests that at least some of this material dates from Broad's period at that University or shortly afterward.
Items C1/54- 62 were kept together by CDB under the title "Notes on Kant"
The items described under this head are, with one exception, autograph manuscripts of short stories written by McKerrow in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. The exception, B1/4, is a series of numbered press-copy sheets, containing a copy of the story ‘The Inevitable Morning’ (B1/3), together with copies of five poems, the originals of which are in B2/13 and B2/15.
The earliest story, ‘Our Trip up “The River”’ (B1/1), was, according to McKerrow’s later annotation, ‘a contribution to a magazine that I tried to start at Wedderlie’. It is in three parts, the first two of which conclude with the words ‘To be continued in our next’. It is unclear whether Wedderlie refers to what Bartholomew’s Gazetteer (1914) calls a ‘shooting-lodge and stream, 1¼ m. NE. of Westruther, Berwickshire’, or some other place; it may be noted, however, that the events related in McKerrow’s story ‘A Strange Adventure’ are said to have occurred while the narrator was spending the autumn at ‘a small house on one of the Scotch moors’. From the style, subject-matter, and handwriting, it must have been written in the 1880s. ‘A Strange Adventure’ (B1/2), which was submitted unsuccessfully to Chambers’s Journal in 1892, was presumably written the same year. ‘The Inevitable Morning’ (B1/3)—the title of which may derive from Emerson’s poem ‘The World-Soul’—is subscribed with the pseudonym ‘Kenneth Niel’ and was written about the same time as a group of poems (B2/13) submitted under the same pseudonym to the Yellow Book about January 1895 (Henry Harland’s letter of rejection is dated the 14th). The next five stories (B1/5–9) are explicitly dated. The dates of the last three items (B1/8–10) are uncertain, but they were probably written at some time in the latter half of the eighteen-nineties.
Sloperton, Chippenham - Concerning the Byron statue.
In Isaac Todhunter's hand, listing letters dated 1831-1864.