the greatest cordiality, save that he insisted I should be only an honorary student, or rather, should assist at his lectures as a friend.  I availed myself of his permission on the very next day, and subsequently attended almost all his lectures there and elsewhere, so that he one day said to me, “I shall call you my ‘constant reader.’” To be such a reader was to me an inestimable privilege, and so I shall ever consider it.  I have heard many men lecture, but I never heard any one lecture as did Professor Huxley.  He was my very ideal of a lecturer.  Distinct in utterance, with an agreeable voice, lucid as it was possible to be in exposition, with admirably chosen language, sufficiently rapid, yet never hurried, often impressive in manner, yet never otherwise than completely natural, and sometimes allowing his audience a glimpse of that rich fund of humour ever ready to well forth when occasion permitted, sometimes accompanied with an extra gleam in his bright dark eyes, sometimes expressed with a dryness and gravity of look which gave it a double zest.

I shall never forget the first time I saw him enter his lecture-room.  He came in rapidly, yet without bustle, and as the clock struck, a brief glance at his audience and then at once to work.  He had the excellent habit of beginning each lecture (save, of course, the first) with a recapitulation of the main points of the preceding one.  The course was amply illustrated by excellent coloured diagrams, which, I believe, he had made; but still more valuable were the chalk sketches he would draw on the blackboard with admirable facility, while he was talking, his rapid, dexterous strokes quickly building up an organism in our minds, simultaneously through ear and eye.  The lecture over, he was ever ready to answer questions, and I often admired his patience in explaining points which there was no excuse for any one not having understood.

Still more was I struck with the great pleasure which he showed when he saw that some special points of his teaching had not only been comprehended, but had borne fruit, by their suggestiveness in an appreciative mind.

To one point I desire specially to bear witness.  There were persons who dreaded sending young men to him, fearing lest their young friends’ religious beliefs should be upset by what they might hear said.  For years I attended his lectures, but never once did I hear him make use of his position as a teacher to inculcate, or even hint at, his own theological views, or to depreciate or assail what might be supposed to be the religion of his hearers.  No one could have behaved more loyally in that respect, and a proof that I thought so is that I subsequently sent my own son to be his pupil at South Kensington, where his experience confirmed what had previously been my own.

As to science, I learnt more from him in two years than I had acquired in any previous decade of biological study.

The picture is completed by Professor Howes in the “Students’ Magazine” of the Royal College of Science:—­