Of private history:  On Jan. 21st he returned from Playford.—­On March 22nd he attended the funeral of his sister at Little Welnetham near Bury St Edmunds:  Miss Elizabeth Airy had lived with him at the Observatory from shortly after his appointment.—­For about a week at the end of April he was visiting Matlock, Edensor, and Buxton.—­From June 14th to July 18th he was staying at Portinscale near Keswick.—­He was at Playford for two or three days in October, and went there again on Dec. 23rd for his usual winter holiday.

The following letter, relating to the life of Thomas Clarkson, was written to Dr Merivale, Dean of Ely, after reading the account in the “Times” of October 10th of the unveiling of a statue of Clarkson near Ware: 

ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH,
LONDON, S.E.
1879, October 11.

DEAR SIR,

Pardon my intrusion on you, in reference to a transaction which has greatly interested me—­the honour paid by you to the memory of Thomas Clarkson.  With very great pleasure I have heard of this step:  and I have also been much satisfied with the remarks on it in the “Times.”  I well remember, in Clarkson’s “History of the Abolition,” which I read some 60 years ago, the account of the circumstance, now commemorated by you, which determined the action of his whole subsequent life.

It is not improbable that, among those who still remember Clarkson, my acquaintance with him began at the earliest time of all.  I knew him, intimately, from the beginning of 1815 to his death.  The family which he represented must have occupied a very good position in society.  I have heard that he sold two good estates to defray the expenses which he incurred in his personal labours for Abolition:  and his brother was Governor of Sierra Leone (I know not at what time appointed).  Thomas Clarkson was at St John’s College; and, as I gather from circumstances which I have heard him mention, must have been a rather gay man.  He kept a horse, and at one time kept two.  He took Orders in the Church; and on one occasion, in the course of his Abolition struggle, he preached in a church.  But he afterwards resolutely laid aside all pretensions to the title of Minister of the Church, and never would accept any title except as layman.  He was, however, a very earnest reader of theology during my acquaintance with him, and appeared to be well acquainted with the Early Fathers.

The precise words in which was announced the subject for Prize Essay in the University were “Anne liceat invitos in servitutem trahere.”

After the first great victory on the slave trade question, he established himself in a house on the bank of Ullswater.  I have not identified the place:  from a view which he once shewed me I supposed it to be near the bottom of the lake:  but from an account of the storm of wind which he encountered when walking with a lady over a pass, it seemed to be in or near Patterdale.  When the remains of a mountaineer, who perished in Helvellyn (as described in Scott’s well-known poem), were discovered by a shepherd, it was to Mr Clarkson that the intelligence was first brought.