"At length on Dec. 7th, 1826, the election to the Lucasian
Professorship took place: I was elected (I think unanimously) and
admitted. I believe that this gave great satisfaction to the
University in general. My uncle, Arthur Biddell, was in Cambridge on
that evening, and was the first of my friends who heard of it. On the
same page of my quires on which this is mentioned, there is a great
list of apparatus to be constructed for Lucasian Lectures, notes of
experiments with Atwood's Machine, &c. In December, correspondence
with Dollond about prisms. I immediately issued a printed notice that
I would give professorial lectures in the next Term.
"On Dec. 13th I have a letter from Mr Smith informing me of the
dangerous illness (fever) which had attacked nearly every member of
his family, Richarda worst of all. On Dec. 23rd I went to Bury. The
affairs with Cropley had been settled by the sale of his property
under execution, and my father did not lose much of his debt. But he
had declined much in body and mind, and now had strange
hallucinations.
"The commencement of 1827 found me in a better position (not in money
but in prospects) than I had before stood in: yet it was far from
satisfactory.
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