1859 THE 'TIMES' REVIEW OF THE 'ORIGIN' 255 



A month later, fortune put into his hands the 

 opportunity of striking a vigorous and telling blow 

 for the newly-published book. Never was windfall 

 more eagerly accepted. A short account of this 

 lucky chance was written by him for the Darwin Life 

 (voL i. p. 255). 



The " Origin " was sent to Mr. Lucas, one of the staff 

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

 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. Whereupon, 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 

 offered 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 connec- 

 tion 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. 



