Old Friends at Cambridge and Elsewhere

by John Willis Clark

‘Also while he was in the City he acquired French by a similar process. I do not know whether he carried on his French studies at the same time with the Italian, but I believe not. It seems certainly more in accordance with the practice which he adopted in after life that he should attempt only one thing at a time. But as with Italian so with French; he joined to a knowledge of the pure language a curious acquaintance with argot; also—which points to acquaintance made in cafés—he acquired somehow in those early days a curious knowledge and admiration of the French police and detective system[^[90]].’

The illness which compelled Palmer to give up London had evidently been very serious, and his convalescence was tedious. Nor, when supposed to be well, did he feel any inclination to resume work as a clerk. So he stayed in Cambridge at his aunt’s house, with no definite aim in life, but taking up now one thing, now another, after the manner of clever boys when they are at home for the holidays. He did a little literature in the way of burlesques, one of which, Ye Hole in ye Walle, a legend told after the manner of Ingoldsby, was afterwards published by Messrs Macmillan; he wrote a farce, which was acted in that temple of Thespis, once dear to Cambridge undergraduates, the old Barnwell Theatre; he acted himself with considerable success, and for a week or so thought of adopting the stage as a profession; he tried conjuring, in which in after years he became an adept, and ventriloquism, where he failed; he took up various forms of art, as wood-engraving, modelling, drawing, painting, photography; in all of which, except the last, he arrived at creditable results. His aunt is reported to have borne her nephew’s changeable tastes with exemplary patience, until photography came to the front; but ‘the waste of expensive materials, the damage to clothes, stair carpets—he could always be traced—his disreputable piebald appearance,’ and (last, but not least!) ‘the results on glass,’ were too much for even her good-nature. The camera was banished, and the artist was bidden to adopt some pursuit less annoying to his neighbours. The one really useful study of this period was shorthand-writing; and in after years, when he practised as a barrister, he found the usefulness of it.

Up to this time—the year 1860—he had never turned his attention to Oriental literature, and very likely had never seen an Oriental character. The friend whose reminiscences we have quoted more than once already says that he remembers ‘going one morning into his bedroom (he was a very late riser) and finding him looking at some Arabic characters. They interested him; he liked the look of them; it was an improvement on shorthand; he would find it all out; and so he did!’ He set to work without delay to find somebody he could talk to about his new fancy, and, as the supply of Oriental scholars is necessarily limited even at one of the Universities, he was led at once to the only two persons competent to instruct him—the Rev. George Skinner, and a Mohammedan named Syed Abdullah. The former was a Master of Arts of the University, who had published a translation of the Psalms; the latter was a native of Oudh, who had resided in England since 1851, and who about this time came to Cambridge to prepare students for the Civil Service of India. Under the guidance of these gentlemen, Palmer plunged into Oriental languages with the same enthusiasm with which he had followed the various pursuits we have mentioned above. There was this difference, however, between the new love and the old; there was no turning back; the day of transient fancies was over; that of serious work had begun. His ardour now knew no abatement; he is said to have worked at this time eighteen hours a day. This may well be doubted; but without pressing such a statement too closely, we may admit that he gave himself up to his new studies with unwonted perseverance, and that his progress was rapid. Mr Skinner used to take him out for walks in the country, and discourse to him on Hebrew grammar. Hebrew, however, was a language which did not attract him greatly, and in after years he used to say that he did not know it. Syed Abdullah gave him more regular and systematic instruction in Urdú, Persian, and Arabic. Palmer was ‘constantly writing prose and verse exercises for him.’ They became intimate friends; and it was probably through his representations that Palmer was allowed to give up all thoughts of resuming work as a clerk, and to take up Oriental languages and literature as a profession. Through him, too, he was introduced to the Nawab Ikbal ud Dawlah, son of the late Rajah of Oudh, who took a very warm interest in Palmer’s studies, allowed him to live in his house when he pleased, and gave him the assistance of two able native instructors. Next he struck up a friendship with a Bengalee gentleman named Bazlurrahim, with whom he spent some time, composing incessantly under his supervision in Persian and Urdú. Besides these he was on terms of intimacy with other Orientals resident at that time in England, and also with Professor Mir Aulad Ali, of Trinity College, Dublin, ‘who was constantly his adviser, critic, teacher, friend, and sympathizer.’ Hence, as Mr Besant points out, we may see that he had no lack of instructors; and may at once dismiss from our minds two common misconceptions about him—first that Oriental languages ‘came natural’ to him; and, secondly, that he was a poor, friendless, solitary student, burning the midnight lamp in a garret, and learning Arabic all alone. On the contrary, he never felt any pressure of poverty, and was helped, sympathized with, encouraged, by all those with whom he came in contact. His progress was rapid, and in 1862 he was able to send a copy of original Arabic verses to the Lord Almoner’s Reader in that language, who described them as ‘elegant and idiomatic.’

Up to this time Palmer does not appear to have known much of University men, or to have thought of becoming a member of the University himself. He would probably have never joined S. John’s College had he not been accidentally ‘discovered,’ as Mr Besant happily puts it, by two of the Fellows. The result of this discovery was that he was invited to become a candidate for a sizarship in October 1863, and in the interval prepared himself for the examination by reviving his former studies in classics, and in working at mathematics. He was assisted in this preparation by one of the Fellows, who tells us that, though he declared that he knew no mathematics at all, he ‘always did what I set him, passed the examinations very easily, and presumably obtained his sizarship on it.’ His known proficiency in Oriental languages was evidently not taken into account at the outset of his University career, but some two years afterwards, in 1865 or 1866, a scholarship was given to him on that account only. He took his degree in 1867, and, as there was no Oriental Languages Tripos in those days, he presented himself for the Classical Tripos, in which he obtained only a third class. Such a place cannot, as a general rule, be considered brilliant; but in his case it should be regarded as a distinction rather than a failure, for it shows that he must have possessed a more than respectable knowledge of Latin and Greek, and, moreover, have been able to write composition in those languages. At the time of his matriculation (November 1863) he could have known but little of either; and during the succeeding three years he had been much occupied with vigorous prosecution of his Oriental studies, with taking pupils in Arabic, and with making catalogues of the Oriental manuscripts in the libraries of the University, of King’s College, and of Trinity College. But he always had a surprising power of getting through an enormous quantity of work without ever seeming to be in a hurry. A friend tells us that Palmer

‘Did not strike one as a man of method, as an economist of time, as moving about wrapped in thought. You met him apparently lounging along, ready for a talk, perhaps in company with a rather idle man; yet when you came to measure up his work you were puzzled to know how any one man could do it.’

Palmer’s proficiency in Oriental languages at this time, 1867—only seven years, it should be remembered, after he had begun to study them—is abundantly attested by a very remarkable body of testimonials[^[91]] which he obtained when a candidate for the post of interpreter to the English embassy in Persia. His old friend the Nawab said:

‘Notwithstanding the fact that he has never visited any Eastern kingdom, or mixed with Oriental nations, he has yet, by his own perseverance, application, and study, acquired such great proficiency, fluency, and eloquence, in speaking and writing three Oriental tongues—to wit, Urdú (Hindoostani), Persian, and Arabic—that one would say he must have associated with Oriental nations, and studied for a lengthened period in the Universities of the East.’

We have no room for quotations from the curious and flowery compositions in which numerous learned Orientals held up his excellencies of every sort to admiration; but we will cite a short passage from what was said by Mr Bradshaw, Librarian to the University of Cambridge, who had naturally seen a great deal of him while working at the manuscripts:

‘What was at once apparent was the radical difference of his knowledge of these languages [Arabic and Persian] from that of any other Orientalist I had met. It was the difference between native knowledge and dictionary knowledge; between one who uses a language as his own and one who is able to make out the meaning of what is before him with more or less accuracy by help of a dictionary.’

In the autumn of 1867, a fellowship at S. John’s College being vacant, the then Master, Dr Bateson, knowing Palmer’s reputation as an Orientalist, asked Professor Cowell, then recently made Professor of Sanskrit, to examine him. Professor Cowell writes: