iS6i.] 



ROLLESTON, HENSLOW. 



63. 



interested by Bentham's paper* in the N. H. R., but it 

 would not, of course, from familiarity, strike you as it did me. 

 I liked the whole ; all the facts on the nature of close and 

 varying species. Good Heavens ! to think of the British 

 botanists turning up their noses, and saying that he knows 

 nothing of British plants ! I was also pleased at his remarks 

 on classification, because it showed me that I wrote truly on 

 this subject in the ' Origin.' I saw Bentham at the Linnean 

 Society, and had some talk with him and Lubbock, and 

 Edgeworth, Wallich, and several others. I asked Bentham 

 to give us his ideas of species ; whether partially with us or 

 dead against us, he would write excellent matter. He made 

 no answer, but his manner made me think he might do so if 

 urged ; so do you attack him. Every one was speaking with 

 affection and anxiety of Henslow.j I dined with Bell at the 



Linnean Club, and liked my dinner Dining out is 



such a novelty to me that I enjoyed it. Bell has a real good 

 heart. I liked Rolleston's paper, but I never read anything 

 so obscure and not self-evident as his ' Canons.' { . . . . I 

 called on R. Chambers, at his very nice house in St. John's 

 Wood, and had a very pleasant half-hour's talk ; he is really 

 a capital fellow. He made one good remark and chuckled 

 over it, that the laymen universally had treated the contro- 

 versy on the ' Essays and Reviews ' as a merely professional 

 subject, and had not joined in it, but had left it to the clergy. 

 I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow. Fare- 

 well, with sincere sympathy, my old friend, 



C. Darwin. 



* a 



On the Species and Genera 

 of Plants, &c," 'Natural History 

 Review,' 1861, p. 133. 



f Prof. Henslow was in his last 

 illness. 



t George Rolleston,M.D., F.R.S., 

 b. 1829, d. 1 88 1. Linacre Professor 

 of Anatomy and Physiology at Ox- 



ford. A man of much learning, 

 who left but few published works, 

 among which may be mentioned 

 his handbook, ' Forms of Animal 

 Life.' For the ' Canons,' see ' Nat. 

 Hist. Review,' 1861, p. 206. 



Sir Joseph Hooker was Prof. 

 Henslow's son-in-law. 



