452 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



stowed without any condescension, or endeavour to in- 

 terfere with his independence, but certainly with no 

 stomach to seek favours even from those who would 

 have been most willing to grant them. 



1 We met at dinner on the day I have referred to. 

 Beside Dr Guthrie, Mr Miller, and myself there were 

 only one or two others present. Dr Guthrie restrained 

 his usual flow of mingled manly sense, humour, and 

 pathos to allow his friend to speak freely ; and he had 

 soon to go out to a congregational meeting. So I had 

 the great man to myself for the evening, and he under 

 no restraint. I have observed that in large promis- 

 cuous companies he was apt to feel awkward and re- 

 strained, and to retire into himself, and sit silent. But 

 when there w T ere only a few persons present, and these 

 of congenial tastes, his conversation was of the most 

 brilliant description. You saw the thoughts labouring 

 in his brain as distinctly as you see the machinery in a 

 clock when the clock work is in a glass case. That 

 evening we talked of subjects that were familiar to him, 

 and which I was at that time studying, such as the 

 typical forms which Professor Owen was detecting in 

 the vertebrate skeleton, and the possibility of reconciling 

 them with the doctrine of final cause and the mutual 

 adaptation of parts. He was not sure about some points, 

 and my delight was to set his mind a working. He 

 afterwards brought out his matured views in a very 

 brilliant article which he wrote, reviewing a paper of 

 mine in the North British Revieiv. But that night his 

 thoughts came out tumbling with a freshness, an origin- 

 ality, and a power, which somewhat disappeared when he 

 came to write them out in elegant English. 



' Prom that date he expected me to go out to Porto- 

 bello or Musselburgh and see him when I went to 



