3i8 LIFE AT DOWN. 



the work which occupied so much of his time when at sea 

 during his voyage. His zoological notes of that period give 

 an impression of vigorous work, hampered by ignorance and 

 want of appliances ; and his untiring industry in the dissec- 

 tion of marine animals, especially of Crustacea, must have 

 been of value to him as training for his Cirripede work. 

 Most of his work was done with the simple dissecting micro- 

 scope — but it was the need which he found for higher powers 

 that induced him, in 1846, to buy a compound microscope. 

 He wrote to Hooker : — " When I was drawing with L., I 

 was so delighted with the appearance of the objects, especially 

 with their perspective, as seen through the weak powers of a 

 good compound microscope, that I am going to order one ; 

 indeed, I often have structures in which the ^0" is not power 

 enough." 



During part of the time covered by the present chapter, 

 my father suffered perhaps more from ill-health than at any 

 other time of his life. He felt severely the depressing influ- 

 ence of these long years of illness ; thus as early as 1840 he 

 wrote to Fox : " I am grown a dull, old, spiritless dog to what 

 I used to be. One gets stupider as one grows older I think." 

 It is not wonderful that he should so have written, it is rather 

 to be wondered at that his spirit withstood so great and 

 constant a strain. He wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker in 1845 : 

 " You are very kind in your enquiries about my health ; I 

 have nothing to say about it, being always much the same, 

 some days better and some worse. I believe I have not 

 had one whole day, or rather night, without my stomach 

 having been greatly disordered, during the last three years, 

 and most days great prostration of strength : thank you for 

 your kindness; many of my friends, I believe, think me a 

 hypochondriac." 



Again, in 1849, he notes in his diary: — "January ist to 

 March loth. — Health very bad, with much sickness and fail- 

 ure of power. Worked on all well days." This was written 

 just before his first visit to Dr. Gully's Water-Cure Establish- 

 ment at Malvern. In April of the same year he wrote : — " I 



