Downing Lodge<1>
June 8My Dear Talbot
I am really shocked to think that your two welcome Missives are yet unanswered
The fact is that what with Law Suits Syndicates Discipline Congregations Prizes [&c &c &c?] I have hardly time to wash my hands
I am right glad the results of our Honours-Syndicate meet your approval I believe they [illegible deletion] to are satisfactory to all those mainly concerned viz the Examiners & Examinees – Are you aware that one of your “problems” or “methods” was Set this year as a Crux for the Smith’s prize man nomination
I wish you were here now to help me in settling a host of prize poems though your particular preserve, the Porson, has already been tried & a very fair sprinkling of game found – Evans of St Johns the Cock Bird–<2>
In a short time I hope to drift into Smoother water having got over the bar of division: but hitherto there is no lull whatever – au contraire <3>
Come down whenever you can & stay as long as you can & we will devise many devices ad instaur. Resupnit <4>
The Postman is upon me & refuses [greater?] license [illegible] I must say Goodbye
Ever yours
Thos Worsley [illegible]
W. H. Fox Talbot Esqre
31. Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. The Master's Lodge at Downing College, Cambridge.
2. Rev Thomas Saunders Evans (1816-1889) of St Johns College won the Porson Prize in 1838. Later, Professor of Greek at Durham University. A brillian scholar, Evans was unable to compete in the Classical Tripos due to a deficiency in mathematics, but took his revenge with the anonymous publication, in Greek Iambics, of Mathematogonia. The mythological birth of the nymph Mathesis (Cambridge: W P Grant, 1839).
3. On the contrary.
4. ‘Ad instaurandum resupinatum’, to restore those prostrated by intoxication.