222 PUBLICATION OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. [Oh. XIL 



Times writers at that day, in what I suppose was the ordinary 

 course of business. Mr. Lucas, though an excellent journalist, 

 and, at a later period, editor of Once a Week, was as innocent 

 of any knowledge of science as a babe, and bewailed himself to 

 an acquaintance on having to deal with such a book. Where- 

 upon he was recommended to ask me to get him out of his 

 difficulty, and he applied to me accordingly, explaining, however, 

 that it would be necessary for him formally to adopt anything 

 I might be disposed to write, by prefacing it with two or three 

 paragraphs of his own. 



" I was too anxious to seize upon the opportunity thus 

 olTered of giving the book a fair chance with the multitudinous 

 readers of the Times to make any difficulty about conditions ; 

 and being then very full of the subject, I wrote the article 

 faster, I think, than I ever wrote anything in my life, and sent 

 it to Mr. Lucas, who duly prefixed his opening sentences. 



" When the article appeared, there was much speculation as 

 to its authorship. The secret leaked out in time, as all secrets 

 will, but not by my aid ; and then I used to derive a good deal 

 of innocent amusement from the vehement assertions of some of 

 my more acute friends, that they knew it was mine from the 

 first paragraph ! 



" As the Times some years since referred to my connection 

 with the review, I suppose there will be no breach of confidence 

 in the publication of this little history, if you think it worth 

 the space it will occupy." 



