&T. 72.] TO R. W. CHURCH. 743 
. As to dear Bentham, his life is the very ideal 
of a naturalist’s life, and I have always regarded it 
one of the happiest possible and one of the most suc- 
cessful. . . . His administration of the Linnean, his 
series of addresses, etc., will be looked back to as an 
oasis in the desert. 
Our spring is late; the winter, or rather the 
drought of the previous roieagia has been deadly on 
perennials, herbs and shrubs. . . 
TO R. W. CHURCH. 
May 22, 1883. 
. I wish to condole with you over a hardship 
which you write of, that of having to write a book on 
Lord Bacon. .I quite understand that you should 
bemoan your fate at being drawn into that undertak- 
ing. I cannot think it at all to your liking. Bacon, 
of all people, if the best is to be made of him, I fancy, 
should be written of by a worldly-wise, if not a worldly- 
minded man. Moreover, I must confess to a heretical 
opinion as to another side of Bacon, that in which 
English, and all English-speaking, people glory. To 
blab it out: I have an ugly notion that he was rather 
a sciologist than a man of science, and that he really 
did nothing of real consequence for the furtherance 
of science ; nothing to be compared with Galileo, a real 
father of “ inductive philosophy ” and scientific inves- 
tigation —and Pascal. By the way, taking the two 
men all round, do you not think a taking parallel 
could be run with Bacon and Pascal ? 
Now, to change the subject, — what a noble old man 
Gladstone is, and what a great name he is going to 
leave as a high-minded statesman! I could envy you, 
if it were in my way, the privilege of his friendship. 
