hearing them play, I acquired a strong taste for music, and used
very often to time my walks so as to hear on week days the anthem
in King's College Chapel. This gave me intense pleasure, so that
my backbone would sometimes shiver. I am sure that there was no
affectation or mere imitation in this taste, for I used generally
to go by myself to King's College, and I sometimes hired the
chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so utterly
destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or keep
time and hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could
possibly have derived pleasure from music.

My musical friends soon perceived my state, and sometimes amused
themselves by making me pass an examination, which consisted in
ascertaining how many tunes I could recognise when they were
played rather more quickly or slowly than usual. 'God save the
King,' when thus played, was a sore puzzle. There was another
man with almost as bad an ear as I had, and strange to say he
played a little on the flute. Once I had the triumph of beating
him in one of our musical examinations.

But no pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much
eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles. It
was the mere passion for collecting, for I did not dissect them,
and rarely compared their external characters with published
descriptions, but got them named anyhow. I will give a proof of
my zeal: one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare
beetles, and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new
kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one
which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it ejected
some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was