6 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. I 



The reference to the "Devonshire Man" is as 

 follows : Huxley had been speaking of the strong 

 similarity between Gaul and German, Celt and 

 Teuton, before the change of character brought 

 about by the Latin conquest; and of the similar 

 commixture, a dash of Anglo-Saxon in the mass of 

 Celtic, which prevailed in our western borders and 

 many parts of Ireland, e.g. Tipperary. 



The "Devonshire Man " wrote on Jan. 18 to the 

 Pall Mall Gazette, objecting to the statement that 

 "Devonshire men are as little Anglo-Saxons as 

 Northumbrians are Welsh." Huxley replied on the 

 21st, meeting his historical arguments with citations 

 from Freeman, and especially by completing his 

 opponent's quotation from Caesar, to show that 

 under certain conditions, the Gaul was indistinguish- 

 able from the German. The assertion that the 

 Anglo-Saxon character is midway between the pure 

 French or Irish and the Teutonic, he met with the 

 previous question, Who is the pure Frenchman? 

 Picard, Provengal, or Breton? or the pure Irish? 

 Milesian, Firbolg, or Cruithneach ? 



But the " Devonshire Man " did not confine him 

 self to science. He indulged in various personalities, 

 to the smartest of which, a parody of Sydney Smith's 

 dictum on Dr. Whewell, Huxley replied : 



" A Devonshire Man " is good enough to say of me 

 that "cutting up monkeys is his forte, and cutting up 

 men is his foible." With your permission, I propose to cut 

 up " A Devonshire Man " ; but I leave it to the public 



