1859.] THE 'times' review. 255 



as it did in the leading daily Journal, must have had a strong 

 influence on the reading public. Mr. Huxley allows me to 

 quote from a letter an account of the happy chance that threw 

 into his hands the opportunity of writing it. 



" The ' Origin ' was sent to Mr. Lucas, one of the staff of 

 the Times writers at that day, in what I suppose was the 

 ordinary course of business, Mr. Lucas, though an excellent 

 journalist, and, at a later period, editor of ' Once a Week,' 

 was as innocent of any knowledge of science as a babe, and 

 bewailed himself to an acquaintance on having to deal with 

 such a book. Whereupon he was recommended to ask me to 

 get him out of his difficulty, and he applied to me accordingly, 

 explaining, however, that it would be necessary for him 

 formally to adopt anything I might be disposed to write, by 

 prefacing it with two or three paragraphs of his own. 



" I was too anxious to seize upon the opportunity thus 

 offered of giving the book a fair chance with the multitudinous 

 readers of the Times to make any difficulty about condi- 

 tions ; and being then very full of the subject, I wrote the 

 article faster, I think, than I ever wrote anything in my life, 

 and sent it to Mr. Lucas, who duly prefixed his opening 

 sentences. 



" When the article appeared, there was much speculation as 

 to its authorship. The secret leaked out in time, as all secrets 

 will, but not by my aid ; and then I used to derive a good 

 deal of innocent amusement from the vehement assertions of 

 some of my more acute friends, that they knew it was mine 

 from the first paragraph ! 



" As the Times some years since, referred to my connection 

 with the review, I suppose there will be no breach of con- 

 fidence in the publication of this little history, if you think it 

 worth the space it will occupy."] 



