Item 12 - Richard Jones to William Whewell

4 pp.

Brasted - RJ knows as much as WW regarding John Herschel's movements. However, RJ 'can answer for him as boldly as if I was present to his thoughts - 1st he will not stand if there is a chance that he would be in your way or I think Peacock's [George Peacock] - 2ndly He will not stand if he has to canvass the heads with a chance of an opposition so far I am sure 3rdly I do think he would accept the professorship with the expressed and implied condition of lecturing if you and Peacock were out of the question and it was offered him unanimously'. However this will not happen. Herschel further has an 'aversion to the very thought of a Cambridge professorship - he wrote to me with some surprise and some apparent sorrow when you first talked of the mineralogical chair but promised if you got it, to with hold for the future more of the contempt he had been endulging in against the university professorships'. RJ does not think WW should give up the Mineralogical professorship for the Lucasian since the former is tenable and the latter is not. Hence if WW wants to stay in Cambridge and get married, as he has always maintained, he should stick with it -'If moreover you are ever to give way to Peacock I had rather it were now than on some future occasion, because to say the truth, I am intimately persuaded more you will get it now and that if Newton himself were to come to life as a plain Master of Arts the heads would give it to French without hesitation and perhaps with an additional relish from the mere weakness of the job - I say this without any ill will to Peacock - there are not many men I wish better to - I am supposing you to be sure of the mineralogical'. If Julius Hare is not in Cambridge RJ is willing to come and listen to WW's thoughts. WW should not wait to hear from Herschel and would himself have a better chance than Peacock and King for the Lucasian Chair - 'I do not know why but Peacock is not popular in the University'.