VOL. XV.] REVIEW. 95 



subjects and he was anxious, when he reaUzed that he would 

 not live to do so, that this should be undertaken by someone 

 else. Personally I think it extremely doubtful if anyone 

 will ever be found sufficiently venturesome to tackle the task, 

 and I am sure that, even so, no one will ever be able to utihze 

 his material as the Professor would have done : the world 

 is therefore deprived of standard works on our two most 

 interesting British birds solely, it may be argued, on account 

 of Newton's dread of inaccuracy. As characteristic of the 

 Professor it may be pointed out that because the article on 

 " Gilbert White of Selborne," which he wrote for the 

 Dictionary of National Biography, did not appear therein as 

 originally written and corrected in proof by him, he had it 

 reprinted at his own expense for circulation in pamphlet 

 form. Newton was possessed of a highly ideal sense of the 

 beautiful, though this attribute would seem to have been 

 denied him by his biographer, and, although his life was of 

 necessity mostly spent indoors, all his real pleasures were of 

 the open air. Outdoor hfe and observation were his special 

 enjoyment— as a boy at Elveden, later as a traveller and 

 even in his old age when, crippled with infirmities, he had to 

 be content with but a simple drive in the country. 



The inaccuracies which I have found in the book are but 

 few. It may be of interest to point out that the letter, in 

 which Newton said he did his best work between the hours 

 of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., quoted (p. 238) as written to Thomas 

 Southwell on January 21st, 1888, was in reahty addressed 

 to Mr. W. Eagle Clarke on January 31st ; unless, indeed, the 

 Professor had written to Southwell ten days earlier in exactly 

 the same words. A misstatement, probably caused by the 

 Professor's handwriting, occurs (p. 275) where he is made 

 to say, when writing from Bloxworth in Dorsetshire in 

 September 1870, " I oscillate between a gun and a proof 

 sheet." Newton never shot after leaving Elveden in 1863 

 and the word which he wrote was probably "game " : re- 

 ferring to an after-tea game of croquet or to a game of 

 backgammon or picquet at night. It is, I think, regrettable 

 that the references given to Mr. Arthur C. Benson's article 

 on the Professor should refer the reader to the Cornhill 

 Magazine of " June " 1911, and it may be noted, as a matter 

 of fact, that the article appeared in the issue of March, on 

 PP- 334-349- This particular article aroused considerable 

 difference of opinion and Mr. Benson was at no little pains 

 to reconsider it and to add a preface when reprinting it 

 in 191 1 in The Leaves of the Tree : it is therefore to this 

 book that the reader might more generously have been 



