‘I perceive and feel the value of the advice you give me, and I have no wish, I think, either to deny or to defend the failings you point out. In a person holding so eminent a station as mine will be, everything impatient and overbearing is of course quite out of place; and though it may cost me some effort, my conviction of this truth is so strong that I think it cannot easily lose its hold. As to my love of disputation, I do not deny that it has been a great amusement to me; but I find it to be so little of an amusement to others that I should have to lay down my logical cudgels for the sake of good manners alone.’
The writer of these sentences was far too straightforward not to have meant every word that he wrote; and we feel sure that he tried to carry out his good intentions. We are compelled, however, to admit that he failed. He _was_ impatient and he _was_ overbearing; or he was thought to be so, which, so far as his success as a Master went, came to the same thing. He had lived so long as a bachelor among bachelors—giving and receiving thrusts in argument, like a pugilist in a fair fight—that he had become somewhat pachydermatous. It is probable, too, that he was quite ignorant of the weight of his own blows. He forgot those he received, and expected his antagonist to have an equally short memory. Again, the high view which he took of his position as Master laid him open to the charge of arrogance. We believe the true explanation to be that he was too conscientious, if such a phrase be admissible; too inflexible in exacting from others the same strict obedience to College rules which he imposed upon himself. There are two ways, however, of doing most things; and he was unlucky in nearly always choosing the wrong one. For instance, his hospitality was boundless; whenever strangers came to Cambridge, they were entertained at Trinity Lodge; and, besides, there were weekly parties at which the residents were received. The rooms are spacious, and the welcome was intended to be a warm one; but the parties were not successful. Even at those social gatherings he never forgot that he was Master; compelling all his guests to come in their gowns, and those who came only after dinner to wear them during the entire evening. Then an idea became current that no undergraduate might sit down. So far as this notion was not wholly erroneous, it was based on the evident fact that the great drawing-room, large as it is, could not contain more than a very limited number of guests, supposing them all to sit; and that the undergraduates were obviously those who ought to stand. A strong feeling against anybody, however, resembles a popular panic; argument is powerless against it; and the victim of it must be content to wait until his persecutors are weary with fault-finding. In Dr Whewell’s case it seemed to matter very little what he did, or what he left undone; he was sure to give offence. The inscription commemorating himself on the restored oriel window of the Lodge[5]; the motto, _Lampada tradam_, which he adopted for his arms; his differences with Her Majesty’s judges about their entertainment at the Lodge; his attempts to stop the disorderly interruptions of undergraduates in the Senate House; and a hundred other similar matters, were all made occasions for unfavourable comment both in and out of College. The comic literature of the day not unfrequently alluded to him as the type of the College Don and the University Snob; and in 1847, when he actively promoted the election of the Prince Consort as Chancellor, a letter in the _Times_ newspaper, signed ‘Junius,’ informed Prince Albert that he had been made ‘the victim chiefly of one man of notoriously turbulent character and habits. Ask how HE is received by the University whenever he appears,’ &c.; and a second letter, signed ‘Anti-Junius,’ affecting to reply to these aspersions, described in ironical language, with infinite humour, ‘the retiring modesty, the unfeigned humility, the genuine courtesy’ of the ‘honoured and beloved Whewell[6].’ We are happy to be able to say that he outlived much of this obloquy; his temper grew gradually softer—a change due partly to age, partly to the genial influence of both his wives; and before the end came he had achieved respect, if not popularity. The notion that he was arrogant and self-asserting may still be traced in the epigrams to which the essay on _The Plurality of Worlds_ gave occasion. Sir Francis Doyle wrote: