WORK AT THE SEASHORE. 261 



In March Philip Gosse read before the Royal Society an 

 important monograph on the Dicecious Character of the 

 Rotifera, which attracted a great deal of attention, and 

 led to his election as F.R.S. on the next occasion, the 

 4th of June of that year, Dr. Lankester being his proposer. 

 In March also was published Tenby, the third of his 

 chatty, popular volumes, describing the zoological adven- 

 tures of a summer on the British shores, and adorned with 

 coloured plates. For some reason or another, in spite of the 

 increased distinction of the author, this was not nearly so 

 successful as either of its immediate predecessors ; although 

 a book which brought in a net profit of over ^500 can 

 only be spoken of as relatively, not positively, unsuccessful. 

 Tenby had the disadvantage, as I have said, of being in 

 great part dictated, not written, by the author. The 

 gossipy and confidential manner, too — what The Saturday 

 Review called " Mr. Gosse's air of taking us upon his knee 

 like a grandpapa " — was carried in certain of its chapters 

 to some excess, and, what was after all probably the main 

 reason, the style itself and the matter were no longer so 

 deliciously fresh and novel to the public as they had been 

 in 1852. None the less, Tenby is a charming book, and 

 must be read with A Naturalist's Ramble on the Devonshire 

 Coast and The Aquarium^ giving the completest expression 

 of one most important branch of my father's literary work, 

 namely, his picturesque introduction of and apology for the 

 pleasures of collecting animals and plants on the seashore. 

 My father and mother had now been married between 

 seven and eight years. Their wedded life, which had 

 opened under circumstances which might- have seemed 

 not wholly favourable to their happiness, had become year 

 by year a closer, a tenderer, and a more sympathetic 

 relation. As each had grown to know the other better, the 

 finer faculties of both had been drawn out. My father, 



