CHAPTER VII 

 1851-1853 



Several letters dating from 1851 to 1853 help to fill up 

 the outlines of Huxley's life during those three years of 

 struggle. There is a description of the British Association 

 meeting at Ipswich in 1851,* with the traditional touch of 

 gaiety to enliven the gravity of its proceedings, and the un- 

 conventional jollity of the Red Lion Club (a dining-club of 

 members of the Association), whose palmy days were those 

 under the inspiration of the genial and gifted Forbes. This 

 was the meeting at which Huxley first began his alliance 

 with Tyndall, with whom he travelled down from town, 

 although he does not mention his name in this letter. With 

 Hooker he had already made acquaintance; and from this 

 time forwards the three were closely bound together by 

 personal regard as well as by similarity of aims and interests. 



Then follow his sketch of the English scientific world as 

 he found it in 1851, given in his letter to W. Macleay; 

 several letters to his sister; the description of his first lec- 

 ture at the Royal Institution, which, though successful on 

 the whole, was very different in manner and delivery from 

 the clear and even flow of his later style, with the voice not 

 loud but distinct, the utterance never hurried beyond the 

 point of immediate comprehension, but carrying the atten- 

 tion of the audience with it, eager to the end. Two letters 

 of warning and remonstrance against the habits of lecturing 



* " Forbes advises me to go down to the meeting of the British As- 

 sociation this year and make myself notorious somehow or other. 

 Thank Heaven I have impudence enough to lecture the savans of Eu- 

 rope if necessary. Can you imagine me holding forth ? " (June 6, 1851.) 

 94 



