iv PREFACE. 



volume is not chronologically continuous with the first. Again, 

 in the third volume, the botanical work, which principally 

 occupied my father during the later years of his life, is treated 

 in a separate series of chapters. 



In printing the letters I have followed (except in a few 

 cases) the usual plan of indicating the existence of omissions 

 or insertions. My father's letters give frequent evidence of 

 having been written when he was tired or hurried. In a letter 

 to a friend, or to one of his family, he frequently omitted the 

 articles : these have been inserted without the usual indica- 

 tions, except in a few instances (e.g. Vol. I. p. 203), where it is 

 of special interest to preserve intact the hurried character of 

 the letter. Other small words, such as of, to, &c., have been 

 inserted, usually within brackets. My father underlined many 

 words in his letters ; these have not always been given in 

 italics, a rendering which would have unfairly exaggerated 

 their effect. I have not followed the originals as regards the 

 spelling of names, the use of capital letters, or in the matter 

 of punctuation. 



The Diary or Pocket-book, from which quotations occur in 

 the following pages, has been of value as supplying a frame- 

 work of facts round which letters may be grouped. It is 

 unfortunately written with great brevity, the history of a year 

 being compressed into a page or less, and contains little 

 more than the dates of the principal events of his life, 

 together with entries as to his work, and as to the duration of 

 his more serious illnesses. He rarely dated his letters, so that 

 but for the Diary it would have been all but impossible to 

 unravel the history of his books. It has also enabled me to 

 assign dates to many letters which would otherwise have been 

 shorn of half their value. 



