148 THE PEESIDENCY OF THE KOYAL SOCIETY 



without Court or aristocratic influence. If I had raised 

 myself, wholly unaided, to my scientific position, as Lyell 

 himself, and my father, and Murchison and Palgrave did 

 to the positions they attained, then I should have felt that 

 I had earned Knighthood as they did, and might have 

 accepted ; but my case is wholly different. My Science I 

 owe to my father, ditto my Kew position. My services 

 have been wholly under Govt., and if I am entitled to any such 

 recognition as Knighthood at all, it is to one given for services 

 unmistakeably. As it is, I am on the horns of a dilemma. 

 I could be knighted for the saying I wished it to-morrow 

 the declining is interpreted into despising it, in preference 

 to a riband which I am not offered. Lyell and Murchison 

 say ' Take the Knighthood as a step to K.C.B.' This 

 would be all very well if I really wanted the K.C.B. ! though 

 even then I do not think I could have stooped to any such 

 dodge. Huxley and Lyell are the only persons with whom I 

 have talked over this matter. Huxley quite understands and 

 approves ; but then he despises Knighthood, which I do not. 



Again, to Hooker's grim amusement, he found that in 

 October 1871, in the height of the Ayrton troubles, Sir Charles 

 Lyell urged Mr. Gladstone to make amends to Hooker by 

 giving him the deferred K.C.B. at the very time when the 

 Prime Minister was specially exercised how to keep his unruly 

 colleague in order without giving him further offence ! 1 



The next episode was in 1874. The K.C.M.G., a recom- 

 mendation for which had been refused by the late Government, 

 five years before, was again offered. The official link between 

 Kew and the Colonies was attractive, but as he was now 

 President of the Eoyal Society, it would have been regarded 

 as given to P.E.S., and not to himself for Colonial services, 

 and the Society, as appeared later, would not have approved 

 of his taking anything less than the Bath given to both his 

 predecessors in the chair, with far less service claims. The 

 K.C.B. being so limited an honour, he now felt safe from 

 Knighthood for some time to come. 



He had followed his own inclination but felt some qualms 



1 See p. 168. 



