234 GEORGE JOHN ROMANES issi- 



yours. In Ethel's copy (which is awfully swell) I 

 have written a special sonnet, as I did in yours. 



These poems, or rather a selection from them, 

 will be published, in accordance with the author's 

 wish. 



Of his poetry, his sonnets (which were privately 

 printed) seem the most successful. Various friends 

 saw the privately printed book, and the then Pro- 

 fessor of Poetry 1 at Oxford gratified Mr. Romanes 

 very much by his own kind words respecting them, 

 and also by submitting them to Lord Tennyson, who 

 spoke of them in kindly terms, as did also Dean 

 Church, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. George Meredith, 

 and others. Two letters he received about his poems 

 are here given : 



From the Dean of St. Paul's. 



Ettenheim, Torquay : February 26, 1889. 



My dear Mr. Romanes, Thank you very much 

 for your kindness in thinking me worthy of your gift. 

 I am always glad to see science and poetry go together. 

 It was the way with the earliest efforts of natural 

 science, as Empedocles and Lucretius ; and when the 

 strictest thinking of science is done, there is still 

 something more of expression and meaning, of 

 which poetry is the natural and only adequate 

 interpreter. 



My acquaintance with your volume is as yet only 

 superficial. But I have been very much impressed by 

 ' Charles Darwin,' and by the ' Dream of Poetry.' It is 

 a very pleasant volume to open, and does not send 



1 F. T. Palgrave, Esq. 



