176 CAMBRIDGE. JET AT. 19-22. [1829. 



[Later on in the Lent term he writes to Fox : 

 " I am leading a quiet everyday sort of a life ; a little of 

 Gibbon's History in the morning, and a good deal of Van 

 John in the evening ; this, with an occasional ride with Simcox 

 and constitutional with Whitley, makes up the regular routine 

 of my days. I see a good deal both of Herbert and Whitley, 

 and the more I see of them increases every day the respect 

 I have for their excellent understandings and dispositions. 

 They have been giving some very gay parties, nearly sixty 

 men there both evenings."] 



C. Darwin to W. D. Fox. 



Christ's College [Cambridge], April I [1829]. 

 MY DEAR FOX, 



In your letter to Holden you are pleased to observe 

 " that of all the blackguards you ever met with I am the 

 greatest." Upon this observation I shall make no remarks, ex- 

 cepting that I must give you all due credit for acting on it 

 most rigidly. And now I should like to know in what one 

 particular are you less of a blackguard than I am ? You idle 

 old wretch, why have you not answered my last letter, which 

 I am sure I forwarded to Clifton nearly three weeks ago ? If 

 I was not really very anxious to hear what you are doing, I 

 should have allowed you to remain till you thought it worth 

 while to treat me like a gentleman. And now having vented 

 my spleen in scolding you, and having told you, what you 

 must know, how very much and how anxiously I want to 

 hear how you and your family are getting on at Clifton, the 

 purport of this letter is finished. If you did but know how 

 often I think of you, and how often I regret your absence, 

 I am sure I should have heard from you long enough ago. 



I find Cambridge rather stupid, and as I know scarcely any 

 one that walks, and this joined with my lips not being quite 

 so well, has reduced me to a sort of hybernation. ... I have 



