Famous Men of Science Part 27

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND.

Most of those whose lives are sketched in this volume lived to be old men; but Frank Buckland, the pet and pride of thousands in England, died in his prime, almost at the beginning of his fame; a man of whose life our "Popular Science Monthly" says, "None more active, varied, and useful is recorded in scientific biography."

He was the oldest son of the Dean of Westminster, Dr. William Buckland, and was born December 17, 1826, at Christ Church, Oxford, of which cathedral his father was canon at that time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND.]

"I was told," says Frank, in later years, "that, soon after my birth, my father and my G.o.dfather, the late Sir Francis Chantry, weighed me in the kitchen scales against a leg of mutton, and that I was heavier than the joint provided for the family dinner that day. In honor of my arrival, my father and Sir Francis went into the garden and planted a birch tree.

I know the taste of the twigs of that birch tree well. Sir Francis Chantry offered to give me a library. 'What is the use of a library to a child an hour old?' said my father. 'He will live to be sorry for that answer,' said Sir Francis. I never got the library.

"One of my earliest offences in life was eating the end of a carriage candle. For this, the birch rod not being handy, my father put me into a furze bush, and therein I did penance for ten minutes. A furze bush does not make a pleasant lounge when only very thin summer garments are worn."

The father, Dean Buckland, was distinguished as a man of letters, and for his geological research. The mother, as is often the case with sons of genius, was a remarkable woman, who idolized her boy, and who received in return an affection unusual in its intimacy and confidence.

She began to write about him early, in her journal. "At two and a half years of age," she says, "he never forgets either pictures or people he has seen. Four months ago, as well as now, he would have gone through all the natural history books in the Radcliffe Library, without making one error in miscalling a parrot, a duck, a kingfisher, an owl, or a vulture."

On taking him to see the camelopard and kangaroos in Windsor Park, she says, "He ran about with the latter and the other live animals without the least fear, though he got thrown down by them. He is a robust, st.u.r.dy child, sharp as a needle, but so volatile that I foresee some trouble in making him fix his attention."

When three and a half, she says, "he certainly is not at all premature; his great excellence is in his disposition, and apparently very strong reasoning powers, and a most tenacious memory as to facts. He is always asking questions, and never forgets the answers he receives, if they are such as he can comprehend. If there is anything he cannot understand, or any word, he won't go on till it has been explained to him. He is always wanting to see everything made, or to know how it is done; there is no end to his questions, and he is never happy unless he sees the relations between cause and effect."

At four he began collecting specimens of natural history. At this time a clergyman brought some fossils to Dr. Buckland. Calling his son, who was playing in the room, the Dean said, "Frankie, what are these?"

"They are the vertebrae of an ichthyosaurus," lisped the child, unable to speak plainly.

Mrs. Buckland gave her boy a small cabinet, which now bears this inscription: "This is the first cabinet I ever had; my mother gave it to me when about four years old, December, 1830. It is the nucleus of all my natural-history work. Please take care of the poor old thing."

"In his early home at Christ Church," says Frank Buckland's brother-in-law, George C. Bompas, in his interesting life of the naturalist, "besides the stuffed creatures, which shared the hall with the rocking-horse, there were cages full of snakes, and of green frogs, in the dining-room, where the sideboard groaned under successive layers of fossils, and the candles stood on ichthyosauri's vertebrae.

Guinea-pigs were often running over the table, and, occasionally, the pony, having trotted down the steps from the garden, would push open the dining-room door, and career round the table, with three laughing children on his back; and then, marching through the front door, and down the steps, would continue his course round Tom Quad.

"In the stable yard and large wood-house were the fox, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and ferrets, hawks and owls, the magpie and jackdaw, besides dogs, cats, and poultry, and in the garden was the tortoise (on whose back the children would stand to try its strength), and toads immured in various pots, to test the truth of their supposed life in rock cells."

The boy Frank naturally developed a taste for natural history in the midst of such surroundings. At nine years of age, he was sent to school at Cotterstock, in Northamptons.h.i.+re, and at twelve was elected scholar of Winchester College.

He tells an interesting experience on his entrance. "Immediately after chapel, the old stager boys all came round the new arrivals, to examine and criticise them. I perfectly recollect one boy, H., to whose special care my poor confiding mother had entrusted her innocent, unsuspecting cub, coming up to me with a most solemn face, and asking me if I had brought with me a copy of the school-book, 'Pempe moron proteron.' I said I had not. 'Then,' said he, 'you must borrow one at once, or the doctor,' i. e. Dr. Moberly, the head master, 'will be sure to flog you to-morrow morning, and your college tutor, one of the praefects, will also lick you.'

"So he sent me to another boy, who said he had _lent_ his 'Pempe moron proteron,' but he pa.s.sed me on to a third, he on to a fourth; so I was running about all over the college till quite late, in a most terrible panic of mind, till at last a good-natured praefect said, 'Construe it, you little fool.' I had never thought of this before. I saw it directly: _Pempe_ (send) _moron_ (a fool) _proteron_ (further). So the t.i.tle of this wonderful book, after all, was, 'Send a fool further.' I then went to complain to H.; he only laughed, and s.h.i.+ed a Donnegan's Lexicon at my head."

"A few nights afterwards," says Frank, "I dreamt I was wandering on the seash.o.r.e, and that a crab was pinching my foot. Instantly awakening, I experienced a most frightful pain in my great toe. I bore it for a while, until at last it became so intense that I had to jump up with a howl of agony; all was quiet, but the pull continued, and I had to follow my toe and outstretched leg out of bed. I then found a bit of netted whipcord tight round it; but the whipcord was so ingeniously twisted among the beds, that it was impossible to find out _who had_ pulled it. I returned to bed as savage as a wounded animal. The moment I was settled, the boys all burst into a shout: 'Toe fit tied! By Jove, what a lark!' This barbarous process is called 'toe fit tie' because there is a line in Prosody which begins, 'To fit ti, ut verto verti.'

Hence the origin of this Winchester custom."

A school friend says of Frank at this time: "Imagine a short, quick-eyed little boy, with a shock head of reddish brown hair (not much amenable to a hair-brush), a white neck-cloth tied like a piece of rope with no particular bow, and his bands sticking out under either ear as fancy pleased him,--in fact, a boy utterly indifferent to personal appearance, but good-tempered and eccentric, with a small museum in his sleeve or cupboard, sometimes a snake, or a pet mouse, or a guinea-pig, or even a hedge-hog. In the summer he would be always in the hedgerows, after birds, weasels, or mice, or in the water-meadows, after crayfish, tomculls, and other fish which hide under stones.... In fact, he was a born naturalist."

Another says: "Frank set up a sort of amateur dispensary or hospital. He had a patient or two. One man I remember, with a bad hand, who used to come down to College Gate at twelve o'clock to consult him and be experimented upon. In his toys (cupboard) he had various bottles and specimens, one very highly treasured possession being a three-legged chicken.

"His own natural disposition was of the sweetest and gentlest. I never saw him in a pa.s.sion, though he used to get a good deal teased at one time for his untidiness. But he always had a bright smile amidst it all, and was ready to do anything for anybody immediately after. One thing used to strike me very much about him, and that was his exceeding love for his mother. Boys are generally reticent upon this point, but Frank seemed never tired of telling me about his, and how much he owed her....

"In school hours he was a painstaking and conscientious worker, never leaving his lessons or preparing his task quicker or better than when he had some pet, a dormouse or sometimes a snake, twisting and wriggling inside his college waistcoat, which, having found its way out at his boots, would be carefully replaced under the waistcoat, to go through the same journey again."

While at Winchester, Frank determined to become a surgeon, and chose as a parting gift from one of his tutors, instead of Goldsmith's poems, "Graham's Domestic Medicine." At his request, his parents sent him a lancet, with which he bled his college mates, if they were courageous enough to submit to the operation, offering each one sixpence as an inducement. Nevertheless, when, in vacation, he witnessed an amputation at the Infirmary, he fainted.

When Frank left Winchester, Bishop Moberly said, "I always had the utmost satisfaction in him as a school-boy; and I look back with very great regard to his simple, earnest character, and his devotion to the studies which have made him so well known. To me he was just what I always found him, full of curious information, excellently kind-tempered and affectionate."

In 1844, at the age of eighteen, Frank entered Christ Church, Oxford.

Here he turned the court between his college rooms and the canon's gardens into a menagerie. He owned a young bear, Tiglath Pileser, Jacko the monkey, an eagle, a jackal, besides marmots, guinea-pigs, squirrels, and dormice, an adder and other snakes, tortoises, green frogs and a chameleon. Skeletons and stuffed specimens were numerous.

Many of these pets strayed away. The marmot got into the chapter-house, and the eagle stationed himself in the chapel doorway, and attacked those who wished to enter.

Dr. Liddon tells of being invited to Frank's rooms, to breakfast with him. "The marmots, which had hibernated in the cellar below, had just, as he expressed it, 'thawed.' There was great excitement; the creatures ran about the table, as ent.i.tled to the honors of the day; though there were other beasts and reptiles in the room too, which in later life would have made breakfasting difficult. Speaking of reptiles, one very early incident in my Oxford life was joining in a hunt of Frank's adder.

It had escaped into Mr. Benson's rooms, and was pursued into the bedroom by a group of undergraduates, who had, however, different objects in view. Frank certainly had the well-being of the adder chiefly at heart, the rest of us, I fear, were governed by the lower motive of escaping being bitten anyhow--if consistently with the adder's safely, well--if not, still of escaping. Eventually, the adder was caught, I believe, without great damage.

"One day I met Frank just outside Tom Gate. His trousers pockets were swollen out to an enormous size; they were full of slow-worms in damp moss. Frank explained to me that this combination of warmth and moisture was good for the slow-worms, and that they enjoyed it. They certainly were very lively, poking their heads out incessantly, while he repressed them with the palms of his hands....

"He was certainly one of the most popular men in Christ Church; when he was in the schools, to be examined _viva voce_, almost the whole undergraduate world of Christ Church was there.... He always struck me, in respect of the most serious matters, as combining strength and simplicity very remarkably; it was impossible to talk to him and not to be sure that G.o.d, life, death, and judgment were to him solid and constantly present realities."

Another college friend says: "One evening when I was devoting an hour to coaching him up for his 'little go,' I took care to tuck up my legs, in Turkish fas.h.i.+on, on the sofa, for fear of a casual bite from the jackal which was wandering about the room. After a time I heard the animal munching up something under the sofa, and was relieved that he should have found something to occupy him. When our work was finished, I told Buckland that the jackal had found something to eat under the sofa. 'My poor guinea-pigs!' he exclaimed; and, sure enough, four or five of them had fallen victims."

Tiglath Pileser, the bear, had to be sent away from Christ Church. The dean said, "I hear you keep a bear in college; well, either you or your bear must go." So Tig was sent to Islip, seven miles from Oxford, a living held by Dean Buckland, who had now become Dean of Westminster.

The bear did so much mischief at Islip, in grocer's shops and houses, that he was sent to the zoological gardens, where he died in cutting his teeth.

Jacko, the monkey, was a source of great amus.e.m.e.nt, and greatly prized by young Buckland. "Once, when carrying him on a railway train, in a lawyer's blue bag," says Mr. Buckland, in his "Curiosities of Natural History," published some years afterwards, "Jacko, who must needs see everything that was going on, suddenly poked his head out of the bag, and gave a malicious grin at the ticket-giver. This much frightened the poor man, but, with great presence of mind, quite astonis.h.i.+ng under the circ.u.mstances, he retaliated the insult, 'Sir, that's a dog; you must pay for it accordingly.' In vain was the monkey made to come out of the bag and exhibit his whole person; in vain were arguments in full accordance with the views of Cuvier and Owen urged eagerly, vehemently, and without hesitation (for the train was on the point of starting), to prove that the animal in question was not a dog, but a monkey. A dog it was in the peculiar views of the official, and three-and-sixpence was paid.

"Thinking to carry the joke further (there were just a few minutes to spare), I took out from my pocket a live tortoise I happened to have with me, and, showing it, said, 'What must I pay for this, as you charge for _all_ animals?' The employe adjusted his specs, withdrew from the desk to consult with his superior; then returning, gave the verdict with a grave but determined manner, 'No charge for them, sir; them be insects.'" Whenever Jacko got loose, he found mischief. One day he covered a shoe, sole and all, with blacking, and poured what was left in the bottle inside the shoe. He also rubbed the white kitchen table all over with black-lead and water.

Young Buckland spent his vacations at the University of Giessen, under the famous teacher and chemist, Professor Liebig, to whom he became greatly attached. "Returning in October, 1845, I brought with me," he says, "about a dozen green tree-frogs, which I had caught in the woods near the town.... I started at night on my homeward journey by the diligence, and I put the bottle containing the frogs into the pocket inside the diligence. My fellow-pa.s.sengers were sleepy old smoke-dried Germans. Very little conversation took place, and, after the first mile, every one settled himself to sleep, and soon all were snoring. I suddenly awoke with a start, and found all the sleepers had been roused at the same moment. On their sleepy faces were depicted fear and anger.

What had woke us all up so suddenly?

"The morning was just breaking, and my frogs, though in the dark pocket of the coach, had found it out, and, with one accord, all twelve of them had begun their morning song. As if at a given signal, they one and all of them began to croak as hard as ever they could. The noise their united concert made seemed, in the closed compartment of the coach, quite deafening: well might the Germans look angry; they wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window, but I gave the bottle a good shaking, and made the frogs keep quiet. The Germans all went to sleep again, but I was obliged to remain awake, to shake the frogs when they began to croak. It was lucky that I did so, for they tried to begin their concert again two or three times.

"These frogs came safely to Oxford, and, the day after their arrival, a stupid housemaid took off the top of the bottle, to see what was inside; one of the frogs croaked at that instant, and so frightened her that she dared not put the cover on again. They all got loose in the garden, when, I believe, the ducks ate them, for I never heard or saw them again."

The next autumn, after a short tour in Switzerland, he returned to Oxford, this time bringing a jar full of red slugs. "They at least were noiseless and would not croak like frogs. In the opposite corner of the diligence placidly slumbered a traveller with ample bald head; Frank also slept, but, waking at midnight, he saw, with horror, that two of his red slugs had escaped and were crawling over the traveller's bald pate. What was to be done? To remove them might waken the sleeper. Frank sat, as it were, on tenter-hooks, until the diligence stopped at the next stage, when, firmly covering up the jar and what remained of the slugs, he slipped quietly out of the diligence, resolved to proceed on his journey by another conveyance next morning, rather than face that man's awakening."

Young Buckland took his degree in 1848, and entered St. George's Hospital. "My object," he said, "in studying medicine (and may G.o.d prosper it!) is not to gain a name, money, and high practice, but to do good to my fellow-creatures and a.s.sist them in the hour of need.... My object in life to be a great high-priest of nature, and a great benefactor of mankind." Wealthy, and of the highest social position, he had determined not to live for himself, but for the good of others.

He was now twenty-two; genial, full of kindness, democratic in his feelings, one of "nature's n.o.blemen." At his father's house, the Deanery, he met Lyell, Davy, Faraday, Sir John Herschel, Guizot, Liebig, Aga.s.siz, Ruskin, Rogers, Lord Brougham, Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, Lady Franklin, Lady Sh.e.l.ley, and scores of other distinguished persons.

Here his menagerie was larger than ever. The stuffed forms of Tiglath Pileser and Billy the hyaena were in the hall. Jenny, a monkey from Gibraltar, had come to join Jacko, bringing a pet chicken with her, which lived in her cage, and which she fondled as a nurse does a child.

Here were tailless Manx cats, lizards, snakes, and fifty or sixty rats, usually kept in the cellar. Young Buckland would often take snakes out of his pockets to show his friends. "Don't be afraid," he said to a young lady at a party, as he showed her some snakes; "they won't hurt you, I've taken out their fangs. Now, do be a good girl, and don't make a fuss;" and he wreathed one snake around her neck, and one round each arm. "His sisters were so often bedecked with similar reptilian necklaces and armlets that they became used to the somewhat clammy, crawling sensation which is a drawback to such ornaments."

About this time, Buckland wrote an article on the muscles of the arm, and took it to several periodicals, but none would accept it. Urged by Mr. White Cooper, the queen's oculist, he wrote an article upon his rats, which the friend carried to "Bentley's Miscellany." It was accepted, and thus began his successful authors.h.i.+p. This was subsequently published in his first book, "Curiosities of Natural History," in 1857.

He tells of one of his rat families: "One day a poor mother had moved her young about into several parts of the cage, but could not fix on one point. I saw what was wanting, she could not obtain cover for them. I put my hand into the cage, full of tow and cotton wool; she came instantly and took it out of my hand, and covered up her young. But, notwithstanding all this care, and although evidently most anxious for their welfare, this kind mother, obeying, I suppose, some wise law of nature, devoured during the following night every one of the little ones of which she had been so careful the preceding day."

After being house-surgeon at St. George's Hospital for some time, Buckland became a.s.sistant surgeon to the Second Life Guards in 1854. He had already given his first lecture, "The House We Live in," delivered at a Working Men's Coffee House and Inst.i.tute established by his mother, in Westminster, London.

About this time he was nearly fatally poisoned by a cobra. He says, "I had not walked a hundred yards before, all of a sudden, I felt just as if somebody had come behind me and struck me a severe blow on the head and neck, and at the same time I experienced a most acute pain and sense of oppression at the chest, as though a hot iron had been run in and a hundred-weight put on the top of it. I knew instantly, from what I had read, that I was poisoned. I said as much to my friend, a most intelligent gentleman, who happened to be with me, and told him, if I fell, to give me brandy and _eau-de-luce_, words which he kept repeating in case he might forget them. At the same time I enjoined him to keep me going, and not on any account to allow me to lie down. I then forgot everything for several minutes, and my friend tells me I rolled about as if very faint and weak. He also informs me that the first thing I did was to fall against him, asking him if I looked seedy. He most wisely answered, 'No, you look very well.' I don't think he thought so, for his own face was as white as a ghost; I recollect this much. He tells me my face was of a greenish yellow color.

"After walking, or rather staggering, along for some minutes, I gradually recovered my senses, and steered for the nearest chemist's shop. Rus.h.i.+ng in, I asked for _eau-de-luce_. Of course, he had none, but my eye caught the words, '_spiritus ammoniae_,' or hartshorn, on a bottle. I reached it down myself, and, pouring a large quant.i.ty into a tumbler with a little water, both of which articles I found on a soda-water stand in the shop, drank it off, though it burnt my mouth and lips very much. Instantly I felt relief from the pain at the chest and head. The chemist stood aghast, and, on my telling him what was the matter, recommended a warm bath. If I had then followed his advice, these words would never have been placed on record. After a second draught at the hartshorn bottle, I proceeded on my way, feeling very stupid and confused."