Spencer Walpole

“ He has been known to wade up to his neck in water, and change his clothes driving away from the river on the box of a fly. This was an exceptional case; but it was a common thing for him to sit for hours in wet boots. He rarely wore a great-coat; he never owned a railway-rug; he took a delight in cold, and frequently compared himself to a polar bear, which languished in the heat and revived in the frost. The pleasure which Mr. Buckland derived from cold accounted for many of his eccentricities. Even in winter he wore the smallest amount of clothing ”

“ EVENTS, in the present time, follow one another with such rapidity, and the favorites of society pass in such constant succession over the stage, that the most startling occurrences are only regarded as nine days' wonders; and men who have even filled a prominent place are almost forgotten before a monument is erected to their memory. ”

“ Such were some of the eccentricities of a man who will, it may be hoped, be recollected by the public for the work which he did, and by his friends for his kindliness, his humor, and his worth. As he lived, so he died. Throughout a long and painful illness his spirits never failed, and his love of fun never ceased. "I wish to be present at this operation," was his quaint reply to the proposal of his surgeon that he should take chloroform, and his wonderful vitality enabled him to survive for months under sufferings which would have crushed other men. ”

“ Energy was only one of Mr. Buckland's characteristics. His kindliness was another. Perhaps no man ever lived with a kinder heart. It may be doubted whether he ever willingly said a hard word or did a hard action. ”

“ Buckland's genial manner; and the men who, for the first half-hour, shrank from imparting information, in the next three hours vied with one another in contributing it. Mr. Buckland was equally at ease with more educated audiences, though in their case he was perhaps less uniformly successful. If he had been a politician, he would have been a greater mob orator than Parliamentary debater. But the higher classes, like the lower classes, could not resist the warmth of his manner or the ring of his laughter. ”

“ The Dean, who was probably not altogether displeased at the joke, told the story to his friends who had prided themselves on keeping the line from Oxford. "Here," he said, "you have deprived us of the advantages of a railway, and my son has been up to London."
It was probably no easy task to select a profession for a young man who had already distinguished himself by an eccentric love for animals, which had induced him to keep a bear at Oxford and a vulture at the deanery at Westminster. At his father's wish, Mr. Buckland decided on entering the medical profession. ”

“ He could not resist a cry of distress, particularly if it came from a woman. Women, he used to say, are such doe-like, timid things, that he could not bear to see them unhappy. One night, walking from his office, he found a poor servant-girl crying in the street. She had been turned out of her place that morning as unequal to her duties; she had no money, and no friends nearer than Taunton, where her parents lived. Mr. Buckland took her to an eating-house, gave her a dinner, drove her to Paddington, paid for her ticket, and left her in charge of the guard of the train. ”

“ Buckland's main objects was to form a collection which would illustrate the whole science of fish culture. The museum at South Kensington, which he has left to the nation, exists as a proof of his success. Inferior, of course, to the similar collections in the Smithsonian Museum of the United States, it forms an unequaled example of what one man may accomplish by energy and industry. Thousands of persons have interested themselves in fish-culture from seeing the museum ”

“ Mathematics were not supposed to form a necessary part of a boy's education forty years ago, and it may be doubted whether even his dread of his uncle's ferule or the discipline at Winchester could have induced him to make any progress in the study. ”

“ Under such circumstances it may prove an almost hopeless task to recall attention to the character of a man who held only a comparatively subordinate official position, and who has left no first-rate work behind him to illustrate the achievements of a singularly ready pen. ”