Sunday
My dear Francis,
Here I am back again without having been able to see you. I reached town on Friday evening & heard Frankland lecture, worked until 2oC. next day at the RI, had to run to my lodgings, dress and run back again, the last train starting at 5oC. I had to drive straight to the station and lo! here I am once more. Whatever the audience may be kind enough to think I think rather poorly of the lecture myself.2 [Will] you be kind enough to send me Daubeny3 and Mr Gyde4 will probably have a vol. of the Phil. Trans.5 which might come along with it. I should gladly have remained in town Saturday night but the loss of Sunday would make me a bankrupt.
ever Sincerely yours | J Tyndall
RDS 27/13
[22 May 1853]: although ‘Sept. 52’ is written by another hand on the top of this letter, it was clearly written on 22 May 1853. On Friday, 20 May, Tyndall had travelled to London to attend Frankland’s lecture on ‘Observations, Economical and Sanatory, on the Employment of Chemical Light for artificial Illumination’ (Roy. Inst. Proc., vol. 1, pp. 319–25) (see also letter 0740, n. 3). The following day, Saturday, 21 May, Tyndall delivered a lecture at the RI, before returning to Queenwood that evening (Journal, 19 and 21 May, JT/2/13b/605).
think … myself: Tyndall also recorded in his journal that his 21 May lecture at the RI ‘fell far below my own ideal but nevertheless happened to please the audience’ (JT/2/13b/605).
Daubeny: Tyndall had inquired about Daubeny earlier (see letter 0760, n. 6).
Gyde: Charles Gyde was a clerk at Taylor and Francis (see Volume 3).
Phil. Trans.: perhaps refers to Daubeny’s article in the Phil. Trans. on thermal springs (‘On the Quantity and Quality of the Gases Disengaged from the Thermal Spring Which Supplies the King’s Bath in the City of Bath’, Phil. Trans. 124 [January 1834], pp. 1–13).
Please cite as “Tyndall0761,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on