ch. xiil] REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS, 1860. 251 



commodated the rush to hear the oratory of the bold 

 Bishop. * Prof. Henslow, the President of Section D, 

 occupied the chair, and wisely announced in limine that 

 none who had not valid arguments to bring forward 

 on one side or the other, would be allowed to address 

 the meeting : a caution that proved necessary, for no 

 fewer than four combatants had their utterances burked 

 by him, because of their indulgence in vague declama- 

 tion. 



" The Bishop was up to time, and spoke for full half-an- 

 hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness and unfairness. It 

 was evident from his handling of the subject that he had 

 been ' crammed ' up to the throat, and that he knew noth- 

 ing at first hand ; in fact, he used no argument not to be 

 found in his Quarterly article. f He ridiculed Darwin 

 badly, and Huxley savagely, but all in such dulcet tones, so 

 persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned periods, that I 

 who had been inclined to blame the President for allowing 

 a discussion that could serve no scientific purpose, now for- 

 gave him from the bottom of my heart." 



What follows is from notes most kindly supplied by the 

 Hon. and Rev. W. H. Fremantle, who was an eye-witness of 

 the scene. 



" The Bishop of Oxford attacked Darwin, at first play- 

 fully but at last in grim earnest. It was known that the 

 Bishop had written an article against Darwin in the last 

 Quarterly Review : it was also rumoured that Prof. Owen 

 had been staying at Cuddesden and had primed the Bishop, 

 who was to act as mouthpiece to the great Palaeontologist, 

 who did not himself dare to enter the lists. The Bishop, 

 however, did not show himself master of the facts, and 

 made one serious blunder. A fact which had been much 

 dwelt on as confirmatory of Darwin's idea of variation, was 

 that a sheep had been born shortly before in a flock in the 

 Korth of England, having an addition of one to the verte- 

 brae of the spine. The Bishop was declaring with rhetorical 

 exaggeration that there was hardly any actual evidence on 

 Darwin's side. ' What have they to bring forward ? ' he ex- 

 claimed. ' Some rumoured statement about a long-legged 

 sheep.' But he passed on to banter : ' I should like to ask 

 Professor Huxley, who is sitting by me, and is about to tear 



* It was well known that Bishop Wilberforce was going to speak, 

 t Quarterly Review, July 18G0. 



