R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

Cambridge in the 'Seventies 255bouts of thinking comparatively easy. This was the timeof the Balfour brothers, F. W. Maitland, and others ofthe first order. W. K. Clifford only left for a LondonProfessorship in 1871, and was still in touch with Cambridge.Most of these died young, and strictly belong tothe 'seventies. Behind these bright young figures stoodthat of Henry Sidgwick, a maturer seeker after truth,writing books on Ethics and already giving thought toMetaphysics, Political Economy, Political Science, andmany other subjects. The relations between him and theyounger men were for various reasons 1 unusually close;and it was largely through the impression made by thisintellectual company that Cambridge began to lose someof its old self-satisfaction.Meanwhile thoughts and pens were not all engaged inthe warfare of serious controversy. If in light literaturethe output of the period hardly rivals that of its predecessor,when Calverley and G. 0. Trevelyan flourished,there was no lack of shortlived 2 publications in whichyouthful enterprise found vent. Among these I recall thearmchair papers of the Cambridge Tatler in 1871-2, inwhich V. H. Stanton and A. J. Mason were concerned,but I think the most notable contributor was ChristopherWordsworth. All these three were of Trinity. Of certainvery ephemeral journalistic efforts I can remember oneor two names such as the Moslem, and Momus in whichE. H. Palmer wrote. But by far the wittiest product ofthose days was the Light Green, where true genius enlargedthe scope of Parody with a skill that lifted it highin the region of literary art. In it occurred, during aLittlego-examination scene, two lines still often quoted:And, though they wrote it all by rote,They did not write it right.1 See H. Sidgwick, a Memoir, passim and especially p. 820.2 I would note that the Johnian Eagle, started in 1859 by S. Butlerand others, is still in flight.