CAMBRIDGE
71
poems published under his initials contains some gems. He had lost a favourite male cousin in youth whose death affected him deeply and gave the chief motive to the book of poems in question.
My second long vacation was spent with a reading
party in Aberfeldy, in Perthshire, under the guidance
of two tutors as usual, of whom one was Arthur
Cayley (1821-1895), whose mathematical work soon
gained a world-wide reputation. He and Sylvester
(IS14-T897) became the two leading mathematicians
tigl,ind, C;tyley was rel)utcd to I)c the mire solid,
ter the more daring and brilliant. I taw much of Sylvester a dozen or more years after the date of which I now speak, and for a brief time also at the English Lakes. He was a great friend of Cayley, and corresponded with him very often about his own numerous new ideas, becoming subsequently depressed or elated according to the tenor of the answer. Over and over again I have heard him say, " I must send this to Cayley," or again, " Cayley has pointed out a difficulty." He was charmingly naive, and both were men of prodigious mental power. When the time came for adjudging the Copley Medal to one or other of them, the highest honour of the Royal Society, which it annually bestows on the foremost man in science of whatever branch, in all Europe, there was much discussion as to which of the two should first have it. I was a member of its Council
One of the verses still haunts my memory and deserves reproduction :
The brook sings not so cheerily as of yore,
The young spring leaf is withered and upcurled, The rose is scentless, and the sunbeam cold, Truly there's something wanting in the world."
