Richard Owen, Charles Darwin 267 



Cetacean skeletons, was only achieved under his successor, 

 Sir William Flower. The fact was, as Sir William pointed 

 out, that the division of the Museum into four departments, 

 each with its own head, left Owen practically powerless. 

 Increased age added to the difficulties, and in 1883 he 

 resigned his post and spent the remaining nine years of his 

 life in retirement in his beautiful cottage at Sheen Lodge. 



Owen was widely read, fond of music and the drama, 

 and a man of striking personality. But, owing to his 

 faculty for acrimonious controversy, he was rather an 

 isolated zoologist, standing alone and going his own way. 

 His power of work was prodigious : not only did he pub- 

 lish innumerable papers in all the scientific journals, but a 

 large number of books, the titles of which are set forth in 

 the " Dictionary of National Biography." 



On the same day, the 12th February 1809, upon which 

 Abraham Lincoln first saw the light, was born, at the 

 " Mount," Shrewsbury, a little child destined as he grew 

 up to alter our conceptions of organic life perhaps more 

 profoundly than any other man has ever altered them, 

 and this not only in the subjects he made his own, but in 

 every department of human knowledge and thought. 



As to the man, two estimates of his character may 

 be quoted, one by a student who lived on terms of close 

 intimacy with Darwin when at Christ's College, Cambridge, 

 the other the considered judgment of one who knew and 

 loved and fought for Darwin in later life. 

 Mr. Herbert says : 



" It would be idle for me to speak of his vast 

 intellectual powers . . . but I cannot end this 

 cursory and rambling sketch without testifying, and I 

 doubt not all his surviving college friends would concur 

 with me, that he was the most genial, warm-hearted, 

 generous, and affectionate of friends ; that his sympathies 

 were with all that was good and true; and that he had 

 a cordial hatred for everything false, or vile, or cruel, 

 or mean, or dishonourable. He was not only great, but 

 pre-eminently good, and just, and lovable." 

 Professor Huxley, speaking of the name of Darwin, says : 

 " They think of him who bore it as a rare combination 



