i864 DARWIN'S COPLEY MEDAL 275 



my belongings are at Margate. Hope you don't think my review 



of Darwin's critics too heretical if you have seen it. — Ever yours 



faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



When is our plan for getting some kind of meetings during 

 the winter to be organised ? 



The next two letters refer to the award of the Copley 

 Medal to Mr. Darwin. Huxley was exceedingly indignant 

 at an attempt on the part of the president to discredit the 

 Origin by a side wind : — 



Jermyn Street, //ov. 4, 1S64. 



My dear Darwin — I write two lines which are not to be 

 answered, just as to say how delighted I am at the result of the 

 doings of the Council of the Royal Society yesterday. Many of 

 us were somewhat doubtful of the result, and the more ferocious 

 sort had begun to whet their beaks and sharpen their claws in 

 preparation for taking a very decided course of action had there 

 been any failure of justice this time. But the affair was settled 

 by a splendid majority, and our ruflfled feathers are smoothed 

 down. 



Your well-won reputation would not have been lessened by 

 the lack of the Copley, but it would have been an indelible re- 

 proach to the Royal Society not to have given it you, and a 

 good many of us had no notion of being made to share that 

 ignominy. 



But quite apart from all these grand public-spirited motives 

 and their results, you ought as a philanthropist to be rejoiced in 

 the great satisfaction the award has given to your troops of 

 friends, to none more than my wife (whom I woke up to tell 

 the news when I got home late last night). — Yours ever, 



T. H. Huxley. 



Please remember us kindly to Mrs. Darwin, and make our 

 congratulations to her on owning a Copley medallist. 



Jermyn Street, Dec. 3, 1864. 

 My DEAR Hooker — I wish you had been at the Anniversary 

 Meeting and Dinner, because the latter was very pleasant, and 

 the former, to me, very disagreeable. My distrust of Sabine is 

 as you know chronic, and I went determined to keep careful 

 watch on his address, lest some crafty phrase injurious to Dar- 

 win should be introduced. My suspicions were justified. The 



