APPOINTMENT AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

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in 1861, in the house of the late Rev. Thomas Steel at Harrow, a friend, still living, and an excellent judge of character, was speaking of her and expressing warmly his admiration of her when they were joined by their host, who exclaimed, 'And who is this fairy from whose mouth pearls and diamonds are constantly dropping?' That observation was not then made for the first or last time, and, singularly, was applied to her long afterwards, independently, by no less a person than the late Lady Augusta Stanley. She was very indifferent to dress or ornament, and so open-handed that it was difficult to give her anything for which she would not find some special reason shortly after for giving it away to some other person. But, in her simple and old-fashioned neatness, she was a picture of refinement, with a very quiet manner, and in her old age somewhat dignified in her bearing. She was an admirable letter-writer and excellent correspondent. She was a person who formed independent opinions on intellectual and religious subjects, sometimes arriving at different conclusions even from her husband, when they agreed to differ.

It was to her interference that McDougall's final acceptance of the mission to Borneo was owing. The proposal was made to him in the spring of 1847, but almost simultaneously therewith he had the offer of a permanent position in the British Museum through the Rev. Henry Forshall, who was then the principal librarian, and therefore chief of the institution. It was one that need not have interfered with his duty at Christ Church, and was sufficiently well paid to provide with the curacy for his modest household. After much hesitation he accepted the situation at the Museum, for the sake, as he said, of his wife and children; but having done so, he fell into great distress of mind, thinking that he had chosen the lower and was giving up the higher path. No doubt but that he was also influenced by his innate love of adventure, by a certain œstrus which impelled him to seek it, by the romance

of the Sarawak story, by the attraction of blue water, which to him was irresistible, and possibly by his hatred of the desk. When his wife found how matters stood with him, she urged him to throw up the Museum and accept the Borneo offer, but he refused, replying that he had gone too far, and was pledged to the former. She then took the matter into her own hands, and, without further consulting him or any other adviser, went straight to Mr. Forshall that evening alone, and told him all the story, and asked him to release her husband. He received her most kindly, and at once acceded to her request, and she returned home to say, in one of the happiest moments of her life, There, you are free; I have seen Mr. Forshall, and he readily consents to your throwing up your engagement.' He gladly took advantage of her action, and at once accepted the appointment to Borneo.'

It is difficult to analyse the motives of others, hard as it is truthfully to determine one's own, but it is clear that her act was one of pure self-sacrifice. Love of her husband, and a repugnance to his giving up the career that he desired on her account, or even on that of her children, must have been the first impelling motives; but with them was another, equally strong, namely, that she dared not withdraw him from the service to which she thought that God had called him, even though it was to fill a post of danger, which, to many minds, might have appeared like that of leading a forlorn hope. In this she may have also been influenced by the existence of a missionary tradition in her own family. Her uncle, the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, of Watton, who had married her mother's only sister, had gone out in 1816 upon a visitation tour for

When he vacated his place at the Museum, he introduced as his successor Mr. Charles Wycliffe Goodwin, well known afterwards in this country as the author of the essay entitled 'The Mosaic Cosmogony' in the celebrated Essays and Reviews, and more widely as an Egyptologist of European reputation. Mr. Goodwin, who was a cousin of Mrs. M'Dougall's sister-in-law, was by profession a barrister, and died in 1878 at Shanghai in China, where he held the office of Assistant-Judge.