EMBARRASSMENTS OF A REFEREE 143 



To Col. Munro 



April 24, 1866. 



A paper comes from L.S. which was expected to be of 

 value and, as such, to be printed, in which case every one 

 would have wished you to see it at once, and before printing, 

 knowing that you would make no unfair use of it. It turns 

 out to be worthless, and we therefore propose not to hamper 

 you with it ; both because it would not help you, and 

 because it avoids all suspicion of our having had a sinister 

 object in sending it to you. 



No thought of your cutting out X. ever occurred to 

 B[entham] or self ; we would both of us readily swear by 

 your honour and not only by this but by your generosity, 

 yea, even to your own detriment, and we felt sure that a 

 sight of this crude performance would be a bad service to 

 you, and to science. If you did see it you might have found 

 quarries of gold that you would wish to quote and must have 

 quoted, and would then be open to be accused of not quoting 

 more, or of using more without quotation ; and the paper 

 remaining unpublished another would be able to say what 

 he liked uncontradicted. Believe me, my dear friend, that 

 it was in consideration of your scrupulous honour and 

 generosity that we acted as we did ; and to avoid 

 embarrassing you. 



Similarly he writes to Darwin in April 1870 : 



I am now in a frightful state of mind. The R.S. have 



referred to me 's [address], and I find it so full of perfect 



trash that I am compelled to recommend its non-publi- 

 cation. It will be a knock-down blow to the poor man. 

 The systematic part is very meagre indeed, the vegetable 

 anatomy miserable and often utterly wrong ; the affinities 

 more often mere guess-work than not, and as to the theories 

 and speculations, they would make your hair stand on 

 end. . . . Altogether the affair has cut me up terribly, 

 and I would rather have burnt my fingers than performed 

 so painful a duty. The curse of Cain will cleave to 

 me. By the way he pooh-poohed my Greenland paper — 

 this has only just come into my head, and does not mend 

 matters — for he will, if he hears of it, put my sinister 

 report down to spite, whereas I would fain have heaped 



