Welsh Journals

since those days I have often marvelled that I was not crushed. It is so easy for a person whom the public reveres to crush a young life at the beginning of its career. But "let the dead bury their dead." Although I had no college duties I had a busy summer for Mr Rathbone requested me to draw up the constitution of the new college, which was to be established at Bangor. This occupied me closely and privately for many weeks; and Mr Rathbone gave me £ 50 for my work. The constitution, I may now say, was supposed to have been sketched by an episcopalian and was violently attacked for want of a satisfactory bal- ance of sects, by the Liberal and Nonconformist press. It is hardly necessary to sav that I had tried a task in which no one has ever succeeded in Wales; namely, that of "being fair" as be- tween the religious (?) sects. The same summer found me appointed examiner for degrees in the University of Glasgow in the department of philosophy and English literature. The appointment lasted for three years, and car- ried a salary, I think, of £ 80 a year. I was presiding, as invigilator, over the exam- ination for degrees held at the close of the session when Edward Caird came up on the platform behind the students, where I sat, and placed a small book in my hand, asking me to look at it before he returned. It was called Aids to Philosophy, and when Caird came back I had no hesitation in saying to him that it consisted of garbled and unintelligent renderings of his own lectures. Asked if I would permit it to be published and sold, I answered with an emphatic "No." The students of the future would buy and use the book, and the result would be in- justice to the subject and confusion of mind on the part of the student. The author pretended that the book was an independent production; Mr Caird denied this, and asked for a legal injunction prohibiting its publication on the ground that it was, though confused and inaccurate, a pretended rendering of his own lectures. He sought to prove his conclusion by comparing the Aids with a previous, openly confessed, typewritten copy of Caird's lectures against the publication of which an injunction had already been obtained. For some weeks I was engaged in making this com- parison and proving the affinity of the two pro- ductions; and, naturally, I was called as witness, and principal witness, in the case. I shall not follow its history, further than by saying that it was won by Caird before the Sheriff, lost on appeal to the Edinburgh legal authorities, and won finally before the House of Lords. Until that time the rights of a professor to publish his own lectures were not indisputably exclusive. Caird. as witness in a law court was most im- pressive. He seemed to be eager to give his opponents the full rights of their contentions; but, having made every possible concession, there came a broadside from him that swept everything clean away. He was in very low spirits as we walked home together from the law court. But he managed, in his shy way, to ask me how he had done. "You reminded me of Sam Weller, Mr Caird," I said, "you seemed to look round at the end and say 'Is there any other gentleman who would like to ask me any- thing?' "You rascal," he replied and the clouds lifted. What with my prolonged visits to Scotland, the examinership and the litigation, the winter and spring of 1883-84 passed quite pleasantly. And my wife had a fuller and richer life than ever, for our eldest son was born in September, 1883. Then came the election of the Principal of the North Wales University College for which I was a candidate, backed by my Glasgow teachers and pupils and friends. In one sense, I had set my heart on the office; for, so far as I can judge, I can say without the least touch of exaggeration that I would have given my life for the well-being of the College. But before the election day had arrived my hopes had been well chastened. The Calvinistic Methodist influence, inspired and sanctified by Principal Edwards and his father, ran against me like a powerful stream. And, in the second place, the scrutiny of my past life was too minute to leave me fleck- less. My "iniquities" were too well "marked" to enable me "to stand." For instance, I was asked by a friend on the College Council if I could refute the charge made against me that I had "smoked a cigar on the street at Porth Din- orwig on a Sunday afternoon!" Fortunately both for the College and for me the choice of the electors fell on Mr, now Sir Harry, Reichel, a very distinguished Oxford scholar, and I may add, after many years of close intimacy and friendship, an unselfish and judicious man-in whom trust grows from year to year as his character of a perfect gentleman reveals itself more and more. I felt the disappointment deeply; but only for a few days. The deeper roots of mv ambition had been unselfish and impersonal, and, as a consequence, healing came very quickly. Be- sides, I had still a chance of being elected as Pro- fessor of Philosophy in the College, and my pros- pects were quite hopeful. Only as the afternoon wore on and evening came on the day of the election did I know real anxiety. Matters did look somewhat dark as the hours lengthened without bringing any news; for the professorship was the last string of my bow that I genuinely valued. It appears that I was elected straight- way when the Council met, and with the greatest cordiality, and that the meeting then passed on at once to the next business, the secretary forget- ting both to inform the other candidate, Mr Joseph Solomon, who was waiting in an adjoin- ing room, and also to send a message to me. I entered on my work at Bangor with the opening of the winter session of 1884-5, and when I re-