BEFORE placing his son at Cambridge Mr. Clerk Maxwell had, as was usual with him, consulted various persons, including Professor James Forbes and Professor Kelland of Edinburgh, Professors Thomson and Blackburn of Glasgow, and Charles Mackenzie, afterwards Bishop of Natal, then a Lecturer of Caius College, Cambridge.[136] Forbes strongly advised Trinity, and offered an introduction to Whewell; but after various reasons urged for Trinity, Caius, and Peterhouse, the decision was in favour of Peterhouse.

Maxwell’s first impression of college life, like that of some other clever freshmen, was not one of unalloyed satisfaction. He was transplanted from the rural solitudes of Galloway into the midst of a society which was of curious interest to him, but did not make him feel immediately at home. He found himself amongst the freshmen spelling out Euclid again, and again “monotonously parsing” a Greek play. He had brought with him his scraps of gelatine, gutta-percha, and unannealed glass, his bits of magnetised steel, and other objects, which were apt to appear to the uninitiated as “matter in the wrong place.” And this in the home of science! Nor were his experiments facilitated by the casual “dropping-in” of the average undergraduate.

His boyish spirits and his social temper, together with the novelty of the scene, and a deep-rooted presentiment of the possibilities of Cambridge, no doubt made even his first term a happy one. But there was an undercurrent of restlessness and misgiving. And this made him lend a readier ear to the advice which was pressed upon him from various quarters, that he should migrate to Trinity.

The ground of this advice was simply that from the large proportion of high wranglers at Peterhouse, and the smallness of the foundation, the chances of a fellowship there for a mathematical man were less than at Trinity College. And this was the reason which, together with his son’s evident wish, most weighed with Mr. Clerk Maxwell. He was also struck with the fact that “Porter senior,” who about this time became Maxwell’s private tutor, recommended the change, although he himself belonged to Peterhouse. But the friend whose counsel in this whole matter was most prized both by father and son was Charles Mackenzie, of whom one who was his colleague at Caius has said that he was “the best of all men whom he had known.”

On Maxwell’s own mind, it need hardly be said, the prospect of a fellowship had little or no influence, except in so far as lie desired to please his father. His own prime motive was undoubtedly the hope, in which he was not disappointed, that the larger College would afford him ampler opportunities for self-improvement.

The letters written to his father by Maxwell while an undergraduate at Cambridge have unfortunately disappeared. But something of their tenor may be gathered from Mr. Maxwell's letters to his son. The following extracts are related to his first term at college:—

Men of genius are often represented by themselves and others as owing little or nothing to their education. This certainly was not true of Maxwell, whose receptivity was only less than his originality. He laid a strong retentive grasp on all that was given to him, and set his own stamp on it in return. Both what was good and what was defective in his early training had left a lasting impress on him, and it was by no means an indifferent circumstance that, in the maturity of his powers, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at an advanced period of the long mastership of Whewell.

I well remember my surprise, not unmixed with needless pangs of boyish jealousy, on finding in the following summer that Maxwell had all at once made a troop of friends. Their names were always on his lips, and he loved by some vivid trait to indicate the character of each. His acquaintance was multifarious, and he had many pithy anecdotes to relate of other than his own particular associates.

He was at first in lodgings in King's Parade, where he “chummed” with an old Edinburgh schoolfellow, Charles Hope Robertson.[141] It appears that the college lectures in mathematics were still felt to be rather elementary, but that he worked harder problems (some were of his own invention) with Tait and with Porter of Peterhouse, who was still his private tutor. A certain amount of classical reading was required of freshmen, and he still took his classics seriously. There is an allusion to the Ajax in one of his letters, and he makes critical remarks upon Demosthenes. There was also a lecture on Tacitus by a “deep, half-sentence lecturer.” Either now or in the following year—at some time before the little-go examination of March 1852—he translated the choral odes of the Ajax into rhymed English verse,[142] and made a rough caricature of Ajax slaughtering the oxen.

His chief outdoor amusements were walking, bathing, and sculling. He was upset in his “funny” in May 1851—a trifling accident to so expert a swimmer. “But,” writes a contemporary Cantab, “he richly deserved it. For he tried to take off his jersey after shipping’ his oars. The oscillations of the funny became rapidly more extensive, in spite of his violent efforts at equilibrium.” For winter recreation he ordered a pair of basket-sticks to be made at home.

He tried some odd experiments in the arrangement of his hours of work and sleep. But his father disapproved of such vagaries, and they were not continued long—although not entirely abandoned even when he had rooms in college. The authority just quoted says, “From 2 to 2.30 A.M. he took exercise by running along the upper corridor, down the stairs, along the lower corridor, then up the stairs, and so on, until the inhabitants of the rooms along his track got up and lay perdus behind their sporting-doors to have shots at him with boots, hair-brushes, etc., as he passed.”

Intellectual interests of all kinds surrounded him, and he soon began to lend new life to all. There were also in the Cambridge of this period religious influences of a remarkable kind. Apart from the Simeonite tradition which still lingered, there was a class of younger men, who, while faithful to a pious evangelical upbringing, had open and inquiring minds. The names of Henry and Frank Mackenzie of Trinity, the one senior to Maxwell, the other junior to him,[143] may be mentioned in particular. To such men, and to many others, the preaching of Harvey Goodwin, now Bishop of Carlisle, but at that time chiefly known as a mathematical authority, was full of interest.

Two events of some importance to the scientific world were the introduction of Foucault’s pendulum experiment for proving the rotation of the earth, and the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Maxwell saw the pendulum experiment in Mr. Thacker’s (the tutor’s) rooms at Trinity in April or May, and wrote an account of it to his father, which has been lost.

The “viewing” of the Crystal Palace, although a thing to be done, was made less exciting than it would otherwise have been by the constant habit of visiting all manufactures according to opportunity. Maxwell disclaims all “fanaticism” on the subject, and his father writes that while a fortnight would be required to see it properly, a great deal of it must be already familiar to them both.

In the October term he joined the “team” of Hopkins, the great private tutor, as a fifteenth pupil.

He also became a regular attendant of Professor Stokes's lectures, and commenced his lifelong friendship with one whose original investigations were so closely akin to some of his own.

Professor Stokes's kindness was greatly valued even in those old days, and much more afterwards. The young man's happiness in all ways at Trinity is manifested by the reappearance of the poetic vein, about the time of the junior sophs' examination, in the Lay of King Numa, dated 13th December 1851.

To this sketch of his first year at college there must be appended one more reminiscence of Glenlair. We met there in the autumn of that year, and I remember that either then or in the previous year, he put into my hands Carlyle's translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, remarking that it was a book to be read with discretion.

In the autumn of 1850 the neighbouring estate of Upper Corsock had been let to a shooting-party,[144] one of whom remarked to me what a pity it was that young Mr. Clerk Maxwell was “so little suited for a country life.” I clearly recollect his look of exulting mirth when this was repeated to him. His disinclination to field sports was certainly not due to any lack of activity, nor even to his shortsightedness, which for other purposes was easily overcome, but simply to his love for animals. The moral of Wordsworth's Hart-Leap Well was not so much a principle as an instinct with him.[145] I remember his once speaking to me on the subject of vivisection. He did not condemn its use, supposing the method could be shown to be fruitful, which at that time he doubted, but—“Couldn't do it, you know,” he added, with a sensitive wistful look not easy to forget. This is all I ever heard him say on the subject.

Letters, 1851.

In the spring of 1852 he got rooms in college (Letter G, Old Court, south Attics), succeeding to his friend Blakiston, and passed his Little-go. In April of the same year he gained his scholarship, and was now launched without further necessary distraction on the long pull of preparation for the Tripos under Hopkins. But his energies were by no means absorbed in this continuous “grind.” He contributed various papers to the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal, did not confine himself to mathematics in the May examination, and in November, besides writing the comic Vision of a University, of Pedantry, and of Philosophy, made elaborate preparation for a College declamation, “the Scottish Covenanters” being the subject characteristically chosen by him.

In June he had paid a short visit to Oxford, and made a trip to Lowestoft with P. G. Tait, before settling at Cambridge (to read and bathe) for the vacation term.

Living in college and dining at the scholars' table, he naturally became more intimate with the other scholars, and he appears especially to have sought contact with classical men. To the names of Cracroft, Whitt, and Blakiston, amongst his newer friends are now added in his correspondence those of “Droop the ingenuous,” Gedge, Howard Elphinstone, Isaac Taylor, Maclennan,[153] and Vaughan Hawkins.

The idea of self-improvement in society had taken a firm hold of him, and he was conscious of the difficulty of guiding himself amongst so many cross influences. He knew that he was involuntarily different with different men, and there are curious traces in his correspondence of the struggle to make the highest use of social circumstances. Those who saw him about this time after an interval were struck by a marked change in his countenance, which, as compared with the Edinburgh days, had very distinctly gained in manliness and gravity, and showed a certain massiveness in its proportions which they had not previously noticed. His dark brown eye seemed to have deepened, some parts of the iris being almost black. A slight contraction of the chest, and a stature which, although above the average, was not tall enough to carry off the weight of his brow, made him less handsome standing than sitting. But his presence had by this time fully acquired the unspeakable charm for all who knew him, which made him insensibly become the centre of any circle, whether large or small, consisting of his friends or kindred. His hair and incipient beard were raven black, with a crisp strength in each particular hair, that gave him more the look of a Nazarite than of a nineteenth century youth. His dress was plain and neat, only remarkable for the absence of everything adventitious (starch, loose collars, studs, etc.), and an “æsthetic” taste might have perceived in its sober hues the effect of his marvellous eye for harmony of colour.[154]

The impression he made on older persons with whom he was less intimate may be gathered from the remarks of Dean Ramsay in a note to Miss Cay:—

The following contribution from the Rev. Charles Hope Robertson, the Rector of Smeeth (above, p. 152), throws light on more than one aspect of his life at this period:—

In the course of the winter he was elected a member of the Select Essay Club, the crême de la crême of Cambridge intellects, familiarly known (because limited to the number twelve) as “the Apostles.” His contributions to this famous association still remain,[156] and present a curious reflection of the contemplative activities of his mind, which is far indeed from being engrossed with mere mathematics, but is rather, in the language of Plato, “taking a survey of the universe of things,” παλσαν πάντων φύσιν έρευνωμένη τών όντων έκάστου όλου. Yet amidst this speculative ardour, and even wildness, we trace the persistence of certain root-ideas, and are often reminded of his intention (expressed with curious self-directed irony in 1850), “to read Kant’s Kritik with a determination to make it agree with Sir William Hamilton.”[157]

His coming of age, June 13, 1852, had been celebrated with a few quiet words in his father’s letter of June 12, graced with the unusual addition of a Scripture text—“I trust you will be as discreet when Major as you have been while Minor (Prov. X. [158]).”

The six months from December 1852 to June 1853 were a time of great and varied mental activity. When the Tripos work became most exacting, he seemed to have the most spare energy. No part of the rich mental life of Trinity failed to touch and stimulate him—from the Moral Philosophy of the Master, to undergraduate discourses upon whist and chess. When most burdened with analytical book-work, he yearned the more deeply after comprehensive views of Nature and Life, and found refreshment in metaphysical discussion, and occasionally in theological controversy. Even the “occult” sciences, in the contemporary shapes of electro-biology and table-turning, had their share of ironical attention.

His relations with the dons, “scientific” and otherwise, whatever may have been their first impression of him,[159] were, for the most part, smooth, but a humorous passage of arms between him and the Senior Dean was long remembered in Trinity. The lines to J. A. Frere, although somewhat personal, are too well known to be omitted from his collected poems, and anything in them which might give offence at the time is more than redeemed by the large humanity of the concluding stanza. The following letter, addressed (but perhaps not sent) to the same personage, throws an amusing light on the circumstances under which the parody of “John Anderson” was written:—

It was while staying up at Easter in the spring of 1853, and working “at high pressure,” that his longing for the untrammelled and reverent investigation of Nature’s secrets found rhythmical expression in the most serious of his poems, the “Student’s Evening Hymn,” in which religious and philosophical aspirations are combined. Thus it was always with him; when most plunged in the minute investigation either of phenomena or of abstract ideas, he was most eager to rebound towards the contemplation of the whole of things, and that which gives unity to the whole. Yet no mind could be more averse from “viewiness,” or more determined to bring every statement to the test of fact.

The brief remainder of that Easter vacation was spent at Birmingham with his friend Johnson Gedge, a scholar of Trinity, whose father was the headmaster of King Edward's School. The exactions of Trinity and Hopkins had only left him a few days of holiday, and these were passed in the manner already mentioned,[160] in viewing the manufactures of Birmingham. Mr. Clerk Maxwell's own delight in such things prevented him from realising how laborious a programme he had suggested for the interval between two long spells of severe head-work. Yet in the midst of it Maxwell seems to have found time to contribute an elaborate piece of humorous correspondence to the King Edward's School Chronicle.

When working hardest he was never a recluse, nor was he ever more sociable than in his third year at college. He seems to have had some difficulty even in avoiding supper parties, and one of his most brilliant metaphysical jeux d' esprit purports to be a mode of escaping from them. To the names already mentioned as amongst his intimate friends, those of Farrar[161] and Butler[162] are now added. Besides the metaphysical discussions, there were Shakespeare readings, of which he was an auditor sometimes, if not an actor in them.

Whilst speaking of these side-sparks from his anvil, it is right to keep in view the loyal and trustful spirit in which he did his regularly-appointed work. His words on this subject in one of the letters to Miss Cay, which will be given presently, are well worthy of separate quotation here:—

As became his kindliness, he was still mindful of the freshmen. Amongst these, Alexander Robertson, now Sheriff of Forfarshire, the brother of Charles, and Frank Mackenzie, were Scotsmen and compatriots. Another junior with whom he became still more intimate was “Freshman Tayler,”[163] so called, though now a junior Soph., in contradistinction to Isaac Taylor. Like Frank Mackenzie and others who have been mentioned, Freshman Tayler was of pious evangelical antecedents. Maxwell's own thoughts at this time, as has been seen, were taking a more decidedly religious colour, and this side also of his rich and deep nature received a fresh impulse in this critical year.

He had been persuaded to spend the short interval between the summer and vacation terms with the Rev. C. B. Tayler, rector of Otley, in Suffolk, who had been touched with Maxwell’s kindness to his nephew. Here he found himself for the first time in the midst of a large and united English family, and in his half-speculative, half-emotional way, was contrasting what he saw with the experience of an only son, when he was suddenly taken ill. The long continuous strain of the past months had been too much for him, and indeed it appears that even in the early spring he had been physically below par.[164] The illness is described by Mr. Tayler as a sort of brain fever, and he was disabled by it for more than a month. The Taylers nursed him as they would have nursed a son of their own, and Maxwell, in whom the smallest kindnesses awakened lasting gratitude, was profoundly moved by this. He referred to it long afterwards as having given him a new perception of the Love of God. One of his strongest convictions thenceforward was that “Love abideth, though Knowledge vanish away.” And this came to him at the very height of the intellectual struggle.[165]

The father was also much affected by this kindness shown to his son. Mr. Tayler had said nothing to make him anxious until the crisis of the illness was past. But when he knows all, there is something more than eloquence in his brief, inarticulate phrases of recognition:—