CHARLES DARWIN. 97 



the science of the naturalist. " Professor De Candolle 

 has described a visit to Down," writes Mr. Francis 

 Darwin in his first volume, p. 139, "and speaks of my 

 father's manner as resembling that of a 'savant' of 

 Oxford or Cambridge : this does not strike me as quite 

 a good comparison ; in his ease and naturalness there 

 was more of the manner of some soldiers." There is not 

 one letter that is printed in these three volumes which 

 does not confirm this of Darwin ; and it came from his 

 intercourse with the gentlemen of the Beagle in their 

 free speech and generally free, untrammelled ways of the 

 world. It was just as though, returning home from the 

 Continent in the somewhat closely-fitting sleeves of 

 the Germans, his tailor had said to him, " These are 

 not ill-made ; but now, sir, we shall see how you will 

 look in our looser English garments." Alluding to the 

 Cambridge professors and to Henslow's evenings, Mr. 

 Darwin once writes (i. 187), "I have listened to the 

 great men of those days, conversing on all sorts of 

 subjects, with the most varied and brilliant powers : " it 

 was on very different subjects, and in a very different 

 manner, and with very different expressions, that he 

 heard the young men on the Beagle conversing. He 

 might have come straight from the ship when, in 1860 

 (ii. 351), he wrote the redoubtable T. H. : "My dear 

 Huxley, For Heaven's sake don't write an anti-Darwin- 

 ian article ; you would do it so confoundedly well. I 

 have sometimes amused myself with thinking how I 

 could best pitch into myself, and I believe I could give 



two or three good digs ; but I will see you d d first 



before I will try." It is not likely that Mr. Darwin 

 would write so vernacularly to every one. Still it is 

 remarkable how very vernacular, how uncommonly free 

 and easy all these letters are. They abound with such 

 exclamations as these : " Good heavens ! " " Bless my 

 7 



