Royal Institution. Friday
My dear Hooker
Are you a member of this antique body?2 if so I shall be glad to be at your side. I take it for granted however that you are. Well I was born at Leighlin Bridge Ireland and am 36 years old.3 It may be a year more or less for aught I know. I was so broken down yesterday that I was unable to go to the Council.4 Mrs Hooker5 has written to me for Hyperion6—I will send it to you, and another book7 which I think will interest her—and you I know will be good enough to bear them with you on Sunday. I am rejoiced to hear of Willy’s8 wellfare, no doubt his present vocation9 is much to his taste, Kiss the little man for me when you see him.
Thank the gods my last lecture before Easter is over.10 I am quite tired out, and purpose next week filing my chest with pure oxygen and my muscles with vigour along the southern rim of the Isle of Wight.11 I wish you were at my side.
Is there such a thing as a Bath chair12 to be had in the neighbourhood of Kew?13
I have copied the following from a brief autobiographical sketch14
‘Michael Faraday was born on Sep 22nd 1791 at Newington Surrey’15
Newington is, as you know, a portion of London. Ever yours | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/TYP/8/2543
LT Typescript Only
[3 April 1857]: the year is given by the reference to Tyndall’s going to the Isle of Wight with Debus from 5–15 April, and the last of his ‘Eleven Lectures on Sound’, which commenced on 22 January and continued every week thereafter on Thursdays until 2 April (see letter 1308, n. 7).
this antique body: Imperialis Academia Cæsariana Naturæ Curiosorum. See letter 1365, n. 3.
36 years old: the General Introduction in the first volume of The Correspondence of John Tyndall notes that while older scholarship, and Louisa Tyndall, give Tyndall’s birth year as 1820, this is doubtful and 1822 is more likely. Either way, this would make him 34 or 36 at the beginning of our volume and 36 or 38 when our volume ends.
Council: the council of the RS.
Mrs Hooker: Frances Hooker.
Hyperion: H. W. Longfellow’s Hyperion: A Romance, 2 vols (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839).
another book: an unidentified book by Emerson, which Frances Hooker found ‘rather tough reading’ (see letter 1394, n. 11).
Willy’s: William Hooker.
his present vocation: see letter 1365, n. 5.
my last lecture before Easter is over: Easter fell on 12 April in 1857. LT wrote on the typescript that the last lecture was on 2 April.
Isle of Wight: located in the English Channel, the largest island in England was a popular destination for holidays. Tyndall wrote in his journal entry of what is likely 5 April 1857: ‘Started with Debus in due time and reached Bishopstoke’ (Journal, JT/2/13c/920). The village of Bishopstoke is on the way to the Isle of Wight from London. That this line from Tyndall falls under the entry for 4 April, but also under a note from LT that a page had been torn out, as well as Tyndall’s mention to Hirst on 4 April that ‘tomorrow I steer towards Debus’ (see letter 1367), suggests that these lines were written on 5 April.
Bath chair: a large chair on wheels for invalids (OED).
Kew: see letter 1328, n. 8.
a brief autobiographical sketch: not identified.
Newington Surrey: now a district of central London.
Please cite as “Tyndall1366,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on