1860.] 'GARDENERS' CHRONICLE.' 6 r 



may be worth ; but I have so long looked at you as the type 

 of cautious scientific judgment (to my mind one of the high- 

 est and most useful qualities), that I suspect my opinion will 

 be superfluous. It makes me laugh to think what a joke it 

 will be if I have to caution you, after your cautions on the 

 same subject to me ! 



I will order Owen's book ; * I am very glad to hear 

 Huxley's opinion on his classification of man ; without 

 having due knowledge, it seemed to me from the very first 

 absurd ; all classifications founded on single characters I 

 believe have failed. 



. . . What a grand, immense benefit you conferred on me 

 by getting Murray to publish my book. I never till to-day 

 realised that it was getting widely distributed ; for in a letter 

 from a lady to-day to E., she says she heard a man enquiring 

 for it at the Railway Station! !! at Waterloo Bridge ; and the 

 bookseller said that he had none till the new edition was out. 

 The bookseller said he had not read it, but had heard it was 

 a very remarkable book !!!.... 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, I4th [January, 1860]. 



.... I heard from Lyell this morning, and he tells me 

 a piece of news. You are a good-for-nothing man ; here you 

 are slaving yourself to death with hardly a minute to spare, 

 and you must write a review of my book ! I thought it \ a 

 very good one, and was so much struck with it that I sent it 

 to Lyell. But I assumed, as a matter of course, that it was 

 Lindley's. Now that I know it is yours, I have re-read it, 

 and, my kind and good friend, it has warmed my heart with 

 all the honourable and noble things you say of me and it. I 

 was a good deal surprised at Lindley hitting on some of the 

 remarks, but I never dreamed of you. I admired it chiefly as 



* ' Classification of the Mammalia,' 1859. 



f Gardeners' Chronicle, 1860. Referred to above, at p. 54. Sir J. D. 

 Hooker took the line of complete impartiality, so as not to commit Lindley. 



