RECEIVES THE COPLEY MEDAL 307 



traverse an article on Darwin in the Atlantic Monthly. 

 That disproves his want of culture. 



Now dear old boy do take care of yourself, and do not 

 rashly follow the prescriptions of any doctor on the faculty, 

 but use your own judgment, and follow nostrums tentatively. 



In this Epistle I have sacrificed lucidity of expression to 

 penmanship, so I hope you can read it. The sheets go by 

 this post. Keep a copy for me. Ever yours, 



J. D. HOOKER. 



In 1887 he was awarded the Copley Medal, the highest 

 award of the Royal Society for scientific discoveries or the 

 advancement of science. ' The Copley quite took my breath 

 away,' he writes to Huxley, November 7. ' Much as I have 

 had to do with that award, I never once thought of myself 

 as within the pale of it.' And to Asa Gray, November 15 : 



Dyer tells me how kind and generous, I fear too generous, 

 you were about it. The secret was well kept, for I heard not 

 a whisper till the award was made. It is an honour which 

 I never expected, often as I have had to award it as P.R.S., 

 and oftener to take a part in awarding it. 



I never for a moment put myself into a thought of it 

 and am not now clear that it is a ' Statutory ' award, being 

 intended for bona fide discovery. As, however, I am informed 

 that my name was brought forward last, and all preceding 

 ones at once withdrawn, I must concede that there are some 

 good grounds for the departure from precedent. I do feel 

 it to be a tremendous honour. 



Quotation has already been made from his speech returning 

 thanks for the medallists at the Anniversary dinner in which 

 he compared the state of botanical teaching in his youth with 

 that of the present day, and told the story of his earliest essays 

 in botany and the hereditary impulse which he followed. 



My father and my grandfather; Dawson Turner, were dis- 

 tinguished botanists, and both were Fellows, at a compara- 

 tively early age, of the Royal Society ; so that when I was 

 startled by the intelligence that I had been awarded the 

 Copley Medal, my first thoughts were that I had arrived at 

 that distinction by a process of Evolution ; that I was, in 



