thinking fit to interfere, Whewell proceeded to administer to him a couple of black eyes. A remark of Owen's mother is preserved, to the effect that she thought it most ungrateful of ' that boy Whewell ' to have ' blacked her eldest son's eyes so shockingly.' But the younger Owen and Whewell became the best of friends, and their friendly intercourse existed without a break until Whewell's death in 1866.Richard Owen remained at the school long enough to be one of the first six boys. Among the privileges at that time attached to those favoured seniors was a curious institution known as the ' wedding money.' Whenever a wedding took place at the Parish Church, these six boys, if they were in attendance, could claim a fee. It seems that in pre-Reformation times the six seniorsWere called upon to fill some minor office in the Church -that probably of acolytes-during the Wedding ceremony, and, although the duties had lapsed, the fees continued. This fee apparently varied -sometimes it would only be a shilling or half a crown between them, but it occasionally tose in the case of county families to the substantial sum of a couple of guineas. On one occasion a farmer was about to be married, but, as he was anxious to have something for his money, he refused to part with a single penny until one of the young ' gents ' would ' gie him a homily.' The boys were somewhat dumbfounded, I lo PROFESSOR OWEN CH. I. and were beginning to think they had better let the question of fees pass and go off empty handed, when Owen, displaying a considerable share of ready assurance, stepped forward and coolly began from the Latin Grammar, ' Propria quae manbus tribuuntur mascula dicas,' &c. That was quite enough. The farmer handed over his fee with great satisfaction, and Owen achieved a cheap reputation amongst those who were present as classical scholar of the school. ' At this period of his life,' so his last surviving sister would relate, ' Richard was very small and slight and exceedingly mischievous, and he hardly grew at all till he was sixteen.' His family were evidently apprehensive-like Mrs. Wilfer's mamma-that it would end by his being a small man. But he soon began to make up for his early want of stature, and when he left the Grammar School he was already a big awkward lad. At the age of fourteen Richard Owen had given no signs of a taste for the work to which his life was afterwards devoted. Part of a manuscript treatise on Heraldry still exists, wLich he wrote about this time, as well as an elaborately painted coat of arms of the Owen and Eskrigge family, with ' R.O. del., i8i8,' in the corner. He thus alludes to this work of art : ' My earliest hobby was Heraldry, and a friend of my mother's, by name Miss Taylor, who was sister of the then 1804-24 APPRENTICED TO LEONARD DICKSON iî S-rter King of Arms, promised me a place in Heralds' College.' In a footnote he added many years after : ' Which luckily I did not get, Garter dying before I was of age for such office.' Soon after leaving school he was apprenticed ffi ' Leonard Di...
