t 

 120 EARLY DAYS OF DARWINISM 



was adjourned until the Monday, but it was then thought 

 by the leaders on both sides that it had better be dropped, 

 and so the matter rests. 



On the Sunday, at the University Church, Temple, 

 the Master of Rugby, treated his audience to a sermon on 

 Darwinism, in which he espoused Darwin's ideas fully ! 

 Nothing very particular occurred during the last few 

 days, and I did a good deal of lionising. Oxford is no 

 doubt finer than Cambridge, but not to that extent that 

 her sons make out.* 



Tristram had been the first zoologist of any note 

 who, at the instance of Newton, publicly accepted the 

 Darwinian views by his paper in the Ibis of October, 

 1859 ; his re-conversion at Oxford to the old faith, 

 perhaps inspired by a feeling of loyalty to the Bishop, 

 was a source of disappointment to Newton, who sought 

 (unavailingly) to show him the error of his ways. 



Elveden, 



July 30, 1860. 



MY DEAR TRISTRAM, 



Much is to be conceded to a man afflicted with 

 a Chancery suit, and when it is a friend who is so afflicted 

 one's feelings are those of the deepest compassion. But 

 compassion and friendship are strained to the utmost by 

 your assertion that Ph. colchicus and Ph. torquatus are 

 ' generally acknowledged ' to be local varieties. This 

 assertion I deny in totissimo. You can only quote two 

 authorities, who do " acknowledge " it. Cuvier I have 

 not by me. MacGillivray is by no means unobjection- 

 able, he only like a wise man goes upon what he has seen, 

 and it is as plain as daylight that when he wrote he had 

 never seen a torquatus pur sang. But I will generously 

 come to your assistance and furnish you with another 

 authority, Samuel, by Divine Permission, one of the 

 Quarterly Reviewers, Bp. of Oxford, a member of the 

 Council of the Z.S.L., and Chancellor of the most noble 



* Letter to Edward Newton, July 25, 1860. 



