Queenwood | 16th Feb. 1853 | J Tyndall.
My dear Tom.
You are a good boy for helping your old brother in his need. Your note was sent to me by Roby accompanied by a brief account of Booth’s state2 from Roby himself.3 Poor fellow, I believe his sunset approaches quickly. I spent yesterday and part of the day previous with Bevington – He is one of the truest-hearted fellows I ever met. Yesterday while the good people were at church he and I were discharging snowballs at each other in the middle of Richmond Park.4 We fought while we had breath. I went up to town on Thursday and on the same evening made sundry experiments before the Royal Society in Somerset House5 – It passed off very cordially and I seem to have rivetted one or two friends, who first argued with me and afterwards gave in – But Friday night6 was my night of trial when I was to appear before the fashionable audience of the Royal Institution – Well I had mastered my subject and made up my mind not to let the audience master me. At 9 o’C the lecture commenced – the Duke of Northumberland7 was in the chair – many men of the first calibre were scattered all round; well I got my work done – pretty much to my own satisfaction and judging from the hurricane of applause which assailed my closing sentences, to the satisfaction of my audience also – When I sat down and while the tempest was raging, with bravo’s mingling like thunderclaps through it, Faraday crossed the platform to where I sat and grasped me by the hand before the whole audience. The Duke of Northumberland came forward afterwards and did the same – I believe no fellow has ever the good fortune to be more petted and patted and overloaded with all manner of odoriferous utterances than I was. I was presented to this person and that person, in my bewilderment I did not know whom. Hands were ready to grasp mine at all corners and finally Faraday took me up stairs where his wife and niece8 (a sweet intelligent girl) were at supper, and stuffed me with sherry and sandwiches.
One little incident had a good deal of originality about it – while talking from one to the other and endeavouring to have a word for each I often noticed a thin, tall, dark looking man standing perfectly silent and passive quite near me – evidently hearing what was said though appearing to have his attention abstracted. I once or twice made room for him to pass me and others but he shewed no disposition to move. Finally having got loose from a group of questioners I was turning away when my tall thin friend confronted me – I have waited he said until you were perfectly at liberty – I dont know you, you dont know me, but I must know you for I believe you are worth knowing – I am perfectly conversant with public assemblies both the house of Commons9 and other assemblies – I have heard speakers of all ranks and degrees, but I never heard anything to equal your lecture tonight – now these are the words of a stranger’ he says ‘who knows you not and of whom you know nothing – I shall remember you, and you will perhaps bear me in mind – I am Whitbread the brewer!”10
I have now got home again and at the present moment there are about 40 little boys spread out before me – some at chess, some at novels, some writing, some chattering, and I can truly say that the glories of the Royal Institution had nothing so sweet in them as the feeling with which I look upon some of these lads - I actually love them Tom almost as well as you can ever love a sweetheart. A few nights ago I dreamt that one of them threw his arms about my neck and kissed, and now when my eye rests upon the lad’s brow, and the rosy glimmer of his cheek I am almost tempted to enact my dream. I believe there are schemes concocting among men of influence in London to get me up there, but I shall weep to part with some of these lads – I think of them at night, and the thought of them is worth two extra blankets on a winter night – the longer I am with them the more I love them – the less of a schoolmaster do I become, and then with my scanty experience I have a power over them which the practical veterans around me cannot obtain. We [joy] over our science with a good humour and heartiness which resembles a musical chant, and the little fellows are never weary of working with me. I pelt them with snowballs and they pelt me – sometimes I have a try at shinty11 with them – and I sometimes lay my old parchment cheek against theirs, soft as the down of peaches, and the little fellows do not shrink from me. But you will call me an old dotard12 if I go on in this strain – and I am a dotard at times, till some shock comes to cause the iron within me to vibrate, and people find that I can be stern on occasion. At all events I am a first-rate egotist and have contrived to cram this sheet to saturation with my own personality. No matter you will be able to endure the dose and I am all the better for the discharge of so much vapour. I sent Bevington one or two of Booths letters – he has them still, safely preserved, and when he returns them I will send them to you. Bevington is delighted with them. He is softer than either you or I and his enjoyments probably more exquisite.
now goodbye. | your affectionate | John
<hereafter LT Transcript Only >
Tuesday13
Your translation14 has just reached me, you have given me a great lift. I shall have very little trouble in polishing up and you have written it far more beautifully than I could have thought possible to your scrambling fingers. I dont want to tax you too much. If you could help Wiedemann at his translation it would perhaps forward me.15 There is also a short paper by Clausius in No 1116 of Poggendorff 1852 commencing at page 415 and ending at 426.17 Of this I have given the 1st. page in the last no. of the Memoire and have therefore translated the said page, but the whole of the remaining portion is to be translated.18 Clausius can write English, try and get him to do it and you can correct it. Next month will be quite early enough for me.
‘A hemisphere’ some writers use an but a is correct for the h is not silent, and it is only before a silent h that the a becomes an. I will have a copy of Magnus’s paper19 sent to you. Now I think I cannot afford you more time, we have frost and snow here at present. Good bye boy | John
I have had a note20 this morning offering me a course of 4 lectures next month in London at 5 guineas a lecture. I have offered to give one, as I did not like to bind myself to 4.
RI MS JT/1/T/559
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/227–228
[14–]16 February 1853: it appears most likely that the letter was begun on 14 February (Monday), finished on 15 February (Tuesday), and sent on 16 February (Wednesday).
Booth’s state: Francis Booth was dying (see letters 0698 and 0703).
Roby himself: see letter 0698, n. 6.
Richmond Park: large park in southwest London.
Somerset House: large building on The Strand in central London, which housed the Royal Society (among other institutions).
Friday night: Tyndall’s Friday evening talk at the Royal Institution (see letter 0712, n. 3).
Duke of Northumberland: Algernon Percy (1810–99), fourth Duke of Northumberland and President of the Royal Institution, was the chairman for the evening of Tyndall’s talk of 11 February.
wife and niece: Sarah Barnard (1800–79) and Faraday had no children of their own. Mrs Faraday’s niece (Jane Barnard) lived with them at the Royal Institution for nearly twenty years.
house of Commons: the lower house of the British parliament.
Whitbread the brewer: likely Samuel Whitbread (1796–1879), who was interested in astronomy and meteorology, and became FRS in 1854. His family ran the Whitbread brewing company.
Shinty: Scottish team sport played with a stick and ball.
dotard: a stupid or silly person (OED).
Tuesday: the addendum to the letter appears only in the typescript, but Tyndall noted on 16 February that he had received a note from Bence Jones regarding the offer to conduct a series of lectures at the LI (Journal, 16 February, JT/2/13b/601); letter missing.
your translation: Hirst translated Magnus’s paper for the Scientif. Mem. (Hirst, ‘Journals’, 5 February 1853). It was published as G. Magnus, ‘On the Deviation of Projectiles; and on a remarkable Phaenomenon of Rotating Bodies’, in Tyndall and Francis (eds.), Scientif. Mem., pp. 210–3 (Hirst, ‘Journals’, 5 February 1853).
Wiedemann … forward me: Tyndall was working on translating foreign scientific works into English, including one by Wiedemann. The amount of time it was taking was of concern to him (see letter 0698, nn. 8 and 18).
No 11: refers to the November 1852 edition of Poggend. Annal.
415 … at 426: Clausius, ‘Ueber die bei einem sationären elektrischen Strom in dem Leiter gethane Arbeit und erzeugte Wärme’ appeared in Poggend. Annal. 87 (November 1852), pp. 415–426.
translated: the translation of Clausius’s article (see n. 17) was entitled ‘On the Work performed and the Heat generated in a Conductor by a Stationary Electric Current’, in Tyndall and Francis (eds.), Scientif. Mem., pp. 200–9.
Magnus’s paper: see n. 14.
note: see n. 13.
Please cite as “Tyndall0713,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on