186 KETUKN TO ENGLAND : AND VISIT TO PAEIS 



and the next day ; he, as I said before, came twice for me in 

 my absence. He talked in the warmest manner of Mr. Brown, 

 Murchison,^ and yourself, also of Darwin and Herschell. . . . 



His plan was now to visit the botanists at Brussels, and 

 to bring back the plants that Blume and Siebold 2 had promised 

 his father by taking Leyden and The Hague on his way home 

 (with a digression, if possible, to Haarlem to hear the organ, 

 and to Amsterdam to see Linnseus' Lapland dress), and he adds 

 later, ' I have seen such fine things lately from Blume and 

 especially from Siebold that my regret is not so great at missing 

 sight of Germany as it was a week ago.' 



But one or two difficulties loom ahead on this Netherland 

 visit, though the kindly French botanists gave him no less than 

 twenty-six letters of introduction. Siebold and Blume, to 

 whom he wishes one of the four remaining copies of the * Genera 

 Filicum ' to be given as a return for gifts of plants, ' are on 

 dreadful terms ; I must manage between them.' More per- 

 sonal to himself is the result of an outspoken review in the 

 * London Journal of Botany.' 



Hombron is in very bad odour ; I want to see him, but 

 Decaisne and Jussieu say he is boiling with rage at us, and 

 that I must not go or there will be a row. I find that that 

 critique was well received here by those v/hose opinions are 

 best worth having. At the Jardin the critique is considered 

 quite fair as his work is a disgrace to France indeed, and that 

 it is well to scold bad books as that gives a character to the 

 Journal, and the latter is very well thought of here, especially 

 the review part. 



1 Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871) took up the study of geology 

 after his marriage and retirement from the army. His chief studies lay among 

 the ancient rocks of Wales and the Highlands of Scandinavia and Russia, where 

 he assisted in the geological survey. His fame was secured by the establish- 

 ment of the Silurian system. As President of the Geological Society twice, 

 and of the Geographical for fifteen years, and director of the Geological Survey 

 from 1855, he possessed large influence, enhanced by liis wealth and social 

 position. 



2 Philip Franz Siebold (1796-1866) spent six years from 1823 in Japan as 

 doctor to a Dutch embassy, and became an authority on Japanese language, 

 literature, and natural history. Then till 1859 he lived in Holland ; revisited 

 Japan 1859-62, and thereafter settled in his native citj^ Wurzburg. Besides 

 introducing many Japanese plants into Europe, he introduced the tea plant 

 into Java. 



