Notices of New Books. 8133 



jealousy. With all this equability of temper aud remarkable benevo- 

 lence there was no insipidity of character. A man must have been 

 blind not to have perceived that beneath this placid exterior there was 

 a vigorous and determined will. When principle came into play no 

 power on earth could have turned him one hair's breadth." The fol- 

 lowing is also very pleasant and very characteristic, although scarcely 

 scientific, a fact we must ask our readers to excuse. " I remember one 

 trifling fact," says Mr. Darwin, " which seems to me highly character- 

 istic of the man. In one of the bad years for the potato I asked him 

 how his crop had fared, but after a little talk 1 perceived that, in fact, 

 he knew nothing about his own potatoes, but seemed to know exactly 

 what sort of crop there was in the garden of almost every poor man in 

 his parish." 



It has little to do with Science, but much to do with the man that 

 Professor Henslow was what is called a liberal in politics; we have 

 seen the biographer of Kirby vaunting the determined toryism, 

 the excessive intolerance which in that worthy old gentleman became 

 almost a religion ; we have here a portrait of another kind, a man 

 educated in toryism becoming an extreme liberal, a reformer, a whig, 

 aud neither afraid nor ashamed to avow his sentiments. " I would 

 have," said Henslow, " every tory consistent, and every radical con- 

 sistent, aud every whig consistent, until either of them shall have 

 become convinced that he has been in error, and then I would have 

 him change his politics, regardless of every risk, and despising the 

 shame which the world will heap upon him. But what I would have 

 every man strive to possess is moral courage sufficient to declare his 

 owu opinious unhesitatingly in the face of the world, and adequate to 

 maintain them unflinchingly against all influence whatever. A man 

 of strict moral courage will hazard everything rather than act against 

 his conscience." These are golden words, but we must pass on. 



Professor Henslow possessed in an eminent degree that useful tact 

 of observing only what was worthy of observation : the want of this 

 tact leading to the eternal reiteration of an oft-told tale, induces a 

 waste of time and labour that is rarely afterwards retrieved. How to 

 get rid of the propensity to observe aud write about the useless is one 

 of ihe difficulties of Science. Henslow intuitively escaped the tram- 

 mels of this error at a very early period of his scienctific career. Many 

 instances of such writing came under Professor Henslow's notice, and 

 his kind heart yearned towards those who made such blunders ; he 

 longed to diflfuse useful information amongst such writers, in fine to 

 teach them what to observe aud how to observe. His observations on the 



