His knowledge
was great in botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and
geology. His strongest taste was to draw conclusions from long-
continued minute observations. His judgment was excellent, and
his whole mind well balanced; but I do not suppose that any one
would say that he possessed much original genius. He was deeply
religious, and so orthodox that he told me one day he should be
grieved if a single word of the Thirty-nine Articles were
altered. His moral qualities were in every way admirable. He
was free from every tinge of vanity or other petty feeling; and I
never saw a man who thought so little about himself or his own
concerns. His temper was imperturbably good, with the most
winning and courteous manners; yet, as I have seen, he could be
roused by any bad action to the warmest indignation and prompt
action.
I once saw in his company in the streets of Cambridge almost as
horrid a scene as could have been witnessed during the French
Revolution. Two body-snatchers had been arrested, and whilst
being taken to prison had been torn from the constable by a crowd
of the roughest men, who dragged them by their legs along the
muddy and stony road. They were covered from head to foot with
mud, and their faces were bleeding either from having been kicked
or from the stones; they looked like corpses, but the crowd was
so dense that I got only a few momentary glimpses of the wretched
creatures.
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