NATURE | 
AO) 
THURSDAY, “MARCH 7, 1907. 
SIR CHARLES BUNBURY. 
The Life of Sir Charles J. F. Bunbury, Bart. With 
an Introductory Note by Sir Joseph Hooker, C.B., 
G.C.S.I. Edited by his Sister-in-law, Mrs. Henry 
Lyell. With portraits and illustrations. 2 vols. 
Vol. i., pp. X+371; vol. ii., pp. v+411. (London: 
John Murray, 1906.) Price 30s. net. 
IR CHARLES BUNBURY was a naturalist of 
the old school; his chief interest, so far as science 
was concerned, was in botany and geology, his pub- 
lished papers being almost confined to palzobotany. 
He was an industrious diarist and letter writer, and 
having travelled extensively in Europe, South 
America, and Africa, he saw much worthy of record. 
He had an inexhaustible interest in all that is best 
worth seeing and knowing; interesting people, and 
all the aspects of nature and art, were industriously 
sought out and described. But it is on the lovable 
personality revealed in his letters and diaries that the 
attractiveness of the book in large measure depends. 
He seems to have been the most patient and even- 
tempered of travellers; his diaries hardly contain a 
querulous word. He may claim the sundial’s motto, 
“Horas non numero nisi serenas.’’ He was fond of 
summing up the characters of those whom he met, 
and these notes, without being unduly laudatory, are 
free from any trace of ill-nature. These acute and 
genial sketches are, to our thinking, the best part of 
the book. The picture which he unconsciously gives 
of himself is that of a man of breeding and unpre- 
tentious distinction, a man one would imagine of quiet 
dignity, with a simple and direct nature and an affec- 
tionate heart. He observed well and described things 
pleasantly; his only fault as a correspondent seems to 
have been his lack of humour, but of this we need not 
complain, for there are no flat remarks intended for 
witticisms, nor is there anything that rings false or 
“smart” in his quiet, easy style. 
The present volumes are an abbreviation of a fuller 
version privately printed some years ago; unfortun- 
ately, the process of compression has not been suffi- 
ciently thorough. Much as we respect and like Sir 
Charles, we do not want a minute itinerary of his 
boyish travels, though we might have liked a para- 
graph showing at how early an age he was alive to 
the beauty and interest of the world. In the letters 
of his later life we find the same want of compression 
by the editor. Most of us are easily satiated with 
descriptive letters from abroad, and there is in these 
volumes a good deal of this class of writing which 
might well have been omitted. In other respects the 
editing of the book shows some conspicuous merits, 
especially in such details as biographers are apt to 
neglect. The volumes are well printed, they are 
pleasantly light in the hand, and the pages are cut. 
The date of Sir Charles’s birth is given in the proper 
place, viz., the first line of the book, and lastly there 
is a full and carefully compiled index. 
A large number of letters are addressed to his father 
and to his stepmother. His strong affection and re- 
NO. 1949, VOL. 75] 
spect for his father are expressed in a touching letter 
written in his forty-seventh year (ii., 87). After his 
marriage to Miss Horner, his father-in-law, Leonard 
Horner, his sisters-in-law, and his brother-in-law, 
Charles Lyell, all became regular correspondents. 
Lyell seems to have consulted him on botanical 
matters and to have written fully to him on geological 
questions suggested by his own researches. We thus 
get some insight into Lyell’s point of view when he 
was making up his mind about the ‘ Origin of 
Species ’’ and preparing for his magnanimous. change 
of front with regard to evolution. On this point 
Bunbury quotes (ii., 227) Sir Joseph Hooker’s weighty 
opinion that Lyell’s 
“complete conversion and open avowal of his con- 
version to the Darwinian theory, at his time of life, 
and with his established celebrity, and after he had 
elaborately argued against the same theory in many 
editions of his great work, is a phenomenon almost 
unexampled in science.’’ 
Sir Joseph was an old friend of Sir Charles Bun- 
bury, and botanists will read with pleasure his tribute 
to Hooker’s genius and character (ii., 156, 226). 
Kingsley was another friend, and Sir Charles often 
records his delight in Kingsley’s versatile talk and 
vigorous personality. Kingsley must sometimes have 
been a little too bloodthirsty for Sir Charles. Still, he 
quotes (ii., 266) without disapproval Kingsley’s re- 
joicings over the victory of the Germans in the 
Franco-Prussian war, in which he wishes that Bunsen 
had been alive to see “the battle of Armageddon. . . . 
fought, not as he feared, on German but on French 
soil.” * 
In 1855 he paid a visit to Germany and made 
friends with many distinguished men. Here he saw 
Ehrenberg, Encke, Lepsius, Jacob Grimm, ‘‘ with his 
fine poetical head,’’ and Ranke with his ‘ expres- 
sion of shrewdness almost of cunning rather than 
power.”’ He gives (ii-, 68) some account of his 
meetings with Humboldt, of whom he writes :— 
“He is a delightful old man with all the courtesy 
and polish of an old Frenchman, and with a vivacity 
and activity of mind that are perfectly wonderful in a 
man of eighty-five. He is a little bent, but still 
hale and fresh looking. ... He has all the volu- 
bility of speech that I have so often heard of, but you 
may well suppose I was right willing to listen and 
did not wish to say much. . . . What is particularly 
striking is his eager interest in all that is going on 
in all the world of science, his acquaintance with all 
the newest researches, and his constant desire for 
fresh information.”’ 
Sir Charles Bunbury’s letters, and especially his 
diaries, are of permanent interest as giving contem- 
porary feeling about celebrated books and discoveries. 
Thus a number of letters tell of the impression pro- 
duced by the ‘* Origin of Species.’’ There is a curious 
passage (ii., 217) where he quotes with approval 
Lyell’s surprise in 1867 at Darwin’s avoidance of 
“any reference to a Designer.’’ It would seem that 
neither he nor Lyell quite understood the Darwinian 
point ef view. 
Among the numerous points interesting to botanists 
may be mentioned Lady Lyell’s account (ii., 130) of 
U 
