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 moral philosophy. He considered the election to be due to the encouragement of one of his intimate friends, Thomas Worsley, master of Downing. The professorship was of small value, and for a century had been treated as a sinecure. Whewell afterwards endeavoured, without success, to have a stall at Ely annexed to it. He took up the duties vigorously. His mind was now turning towards the topics appropriate to the chair. In 1835 he had witten a preface to Mackintosh's ‘Dissertation,’ and in November 1837 he had preached four sermons before the university on the ‘Foundation of Morals.’ During his tenure of the professorship he published various lectures and other works upon allied topics. From this time it seems that scientific investigation ceased to possess its old interest for him, and it may perhaps be said that he had taken to a line of thought less congenial to his real abilities.

After giving up his tutorship Whewell began to tire, like most ‘dons,’ of a college life. In a letter to Hare of 13 Dec. 1840 he asks advice. He has done what he could to improve the mathematical studies of the place; he has introduced philosophy into the Trinity fellowship examination (the only examination in philosophy at Cambridge), and he has finished the great book for which a college life was desirable. Many friends had left Cambridge; he could not easily make new intimacies; and ‘college rooms are no home for declining years.’ He wished to prepare for an ‘improved system of ethics,’ but that might be done if he took a college living and resided at Cambridge for a term to give lectures. If he stayed he might be forced to take the uncomfortable office of vice-master, involving responsibility without sufficient power. He and his friend both doubted (apparently with good reason) his fitness for a country cure. A visit to Masham, a college living then vacant, decided him to stay at Cambridge. Soon afterwards his prospects were completely changed. He was engaged in June 1841 to Cordelia, daughter of John Marshall of Leeds and Hallsteads on Ulleswater. The marriage was at Watermillock church, Cumberland, on 12 Oct. 1841. The ceremony was performed by Frederic Myers [q. v.], who afterwards married Susan, a sister of Cordelia Marshall, and became Whewell's warm friend. On the day of the marriage Christopher Wordsworth, the master of Trinity, wrote to Whewell to announce his resignation of the mastership. He had held on so long in order that his successor might be appointed by a conservative minister. Peel had formed his ministry in September. Hare, to whom the news was sent by Worsley and Herschel, instantly made applications on behalf of Whewell to influential persons; but before they could be received Peel had announced to Whewell (17 Oct.) that the queen had approved of his appointment to the mastership. The political controversy of the day was one of the few subjects in which Whewell seems to have taken no particular interest. His sympathies, however, were conservative; and the whigs might probably have given the appointment to Adam Sedgwick [q. v.] Whewell wrote to Sedgwick expressing his ‘alarm’ at being placed above his senior, and hoping that their goodwill would not be affected. Sedgwick replied that ‘common consent’ admitted Whewell to be the worthiest man for the place, and far better qualified than himself. In fact, Whewell's claims were undeniable. During his tenure of the mastership he was incomparably superior to any of the other heads of colleges, very few of whom had any reputation outside of Cambridge, while none showed any intellectual power of at all the same order. Whewell's force of character, as well as his knowledge and abilities, soon gave him the most prominent position in the university; and no master since Bentley had been so worthy to preside over the greatest of English colleges. Happily too, though masterful and rejoicing in argument, he was thoroughly magnanimous and free from the litigious propensities which made Bentley's rule a period of intestine warfare. From Dean Milman's letter of congratulation it appears that he had also been elected a member of ‘The Club.’

Whewell, after a stay at the lakes, where he occasionally met William Wordsworth, returned to Cambridge in November, and on the 16th took possession of Trinity Lodge. He at once set about improving the building, and proposed to add an oriel in place of one destroyed by Bentley. Alexander James Beresford Hope [q. v.] desired to help, and ultimately gave 1,000l. to the expense, to which Whewell himself contributed 250l. He presented to the college chapel a copy in marble (by Weekes) of the statue of Bacon at St. Albans (erected in 1845). It was upon his suggestion that Byron's statue was admitted to the college library in 1843. He set about a revision of the college statutes with a view mainly of legalising practices which had made some of them obsolete. The new statutes were approved in 1844, but, in view of later alterations, were of little importance. In September 1842 he was entertained at 