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

268 W. E. HeitlandThe Latin Professorship founded in his honour (but insufficientlyendowed) was first held by Munro (1869-72).On Munro's retirement in 1872, John E. B. Mayor wasappointed, and held the office for nearly thirty-nine yearstill his death in 1910. At the risk of being tedious, Iventure to devote special paragraphs to an appreciationof this extraordinary man, whose virtues and failingswere known to me through many years of intimacy, andof whom I retain an affectionate memory.John Eyton Bickersteth Mayor, a pupil of Dr Kennedyat Shrewsbury school, Third Classic in 1848, was a signalinstance of what an insatiable appetite for learning, uncontrolledby a sense of measure and proportion, can andcannot achieve. Great muscular strength, combined withan exceptionally sound constitution, left him free fromlimitations that have hampered many great scholars.Able to do without exercise, save for occasional resort toheavy dumb-bells, his industry soon gained him therepute of extraordinary learning, deservedly. For threeyears 1864-7 he was University Librarian, an office inwhich he initiated some changes of system that I haveheard one of his successors describe as 'judicious inthemselves, but he never carried them out'. It was apity, for his knowledge of languages ancient and modernwas beyond that of any other resident. After his prematureretirement from this post, he settled down toCollege duties as Fellow and Lecturer of St John's, inwhich capacity I first knew him. Genial and popularwith the men, his influence as a teacher was very slight.Acting on the assumption that all students were eager tolearn, and were willing to take the trouble of followingup hints given in lecture by private researches on theirown part, he gained no hold on the average undergraduate.And the better students would have preferredto receive the fruit of his learning in a more ordered and