‘If the object of my companion and myself had been to make a sensation, we must have been highly gratified by the impression which we have produced upon the good people in this country. There is no end to the number and oddity of their conjectures and stories about us. The most charitable of them take us to be fortune-tellers; but for the greater part we are suspected of more mischievous kinds of magic. A single loud, insulated, peal of thunder, which was heard the first Sunday after our arrival, was laid at our door; and a staff which we had occasion to plant at the top of the cliff, was reported to have the effect of sinking all unfortunate ships which sailed past.
‘I could tell you many more such histories; but I think this must be at least enough about myself, if I do not wish to make the quotation from Leyden particularly applicable.’
Whewell had been ordained priest on Trinity Sunday, 1826, and this circumstance had probably directed him to a more exact study of theology than he had previously attempted. The result was a course of four sermons before the University in February 1827. The subject of these, which have never been printed, may be described as the ‘Relation of Human to Divine Knowledge.’ They attracted considerable attention when delivered; and it was even suggested that the author ought to devote himself to theology as a profession, and try to obtain one of the Divinity Professorships; but the advice was not taken. A theological tone may, however, be observed in most of his scientific works; he loved to point out analogies between scientific and moral truths, and to show that there was no real antagonism between science and revealed religion.
In 1828 the new Professor of Mineralogy entered upon his functions, and after his manner rushed into print with an _Essay on Mineralogical Classification and Nomenclature_, in which there is much novelty of definition and arrangement. He was conscious that he had been somewhat precipitate; for he writes to his friend, Mr Jones, who was trying to make up his mind on certain problems of political economy, and declined to print until he had done so:
‘I avoid all your anxieties about authorship by playing for lower stakes of labour and reputation. While you work for years in the elaboration of slowly-growing ideas, I take the first buds of thought and make a nosegay of them without trying what patience and labour might do in ripening and perfecting them[3].’