214 METHODS OF WORK 



fourteen years had elapsed, and only a half of the book 

 was ready, Mr. Van Voorst quite naturally began to get 

 a little bit restive, and said that the copyright of " Yar- 

 rell " would be out before long, and that at the rate of 

 one part in two years no one of his generation would ever 

 live to see the completion of the work. Newton con- 

 tended that he had never made any agreement as to the 

 date of issue, etc., that his system of editing required an 

 intimate acquaintance with thousands of books and 

 obscure publications, and that he could not do justice 

 to the subject if he hastened the publication of the parts. 

 Mr. Van Voorst threatened legal proceedings, and event- 

 ually an arrangement was made to the effect that Mr. 

 Howard Saunders should edit the third and fourth 

 volumes of the book. The decision was welcomed by 

 the long-suffering subscribers, but it was a bitter blow 

 to Newton, who wrote : 



This is a terrible wrench. For more than twenty- 

 two years the preparation of " Yarrell " has been one 

 of the main objects of my life, and I can safely say that 

 no man ever devoted himself more faithfully to a task. 

 On the other hand, I am now free from bonds that have 

 held me in slavery (though you know the work has 

 always been fascinating) for ten years and more.* 



To a man endowed with such a highly developed 

 faculty of sceptical criticism, as the above-quoted letters 

 show was the case of Newton, it might be expected that 

 the quickly changing schemes of nomenclature and 

 classification would cause, at the least, some searchings 

 of heart. It must therefore be recorded that, so far as 

 questions of classification were concerned, he always 

 kept an open mind and was ever ready to consider new 

 ideas. 



With regard to a systematic arrangement of birds, I 



* Letter to A. C. Smith, May 23, 1882. 



