292 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xix 



good-fellowship which existed between them, as well as the 

 interest he took in the style and success of Parker's work. 

 Parker was hard at work on Birds, a subject in which his 

 friend and leader also was deeply interested, and was in- 

 deed preparing an important book upon it. 



ReiVring to his candidature for the Royal Society, he 

 writes 0,1 February 21, 1865: "With reference to your 

 candidature, I am ready to bring your name forward when- 

 ever you like, and to back you with ' all my might, power, 

 amity, an<i authority,' as Essex did Bacon (you need not 

 serve me .\s Bacon did Essex afterwards), but my impres- 

 sion has bjen that you did not wish to come forward this 

 year." 'i 



And onJ November 2, 1866, congratulating him on his 

 " well-earnAl honour " of the F.R.S. — " Go on and prosper. 

 These aremot the things wise men work for; but it is not 

 the less p'fDper of a wise man to take them when they come 

 unsought." 



26 Abbey Place, Dec. 3, 1865. 



My dear Parker — I have been so terribly pressed by my 

 work that I have only just been able to finish the reading of 

 your paper. 



Very few pieces of work which have fallen in my way come 

 near your account of the Struthious skull in point of clearness 

 and completeness. It is a most admirable essay, and will make 

 an epoch in this kind of inquiry. 



I want you, however, to remodel the introduction, and to 

 make some unessential but convenient difference in the arrange- 

 ment of some of the figures. 



Secondly, full as the appendix is of most valuable and in- 

 teresting matter, I advise you for the present to keep it back. 



My reason is that you have done justice neither to yourself 

 nor to your topics, and that if the appendix is printed as it 

 stands, your labour will be in great measure lost. 



You start subjects enough for half a dozen papers, and 

 partly from the compression thus resulting, and partly from the 



worst of the contest." He speaks too of his "minute accuracy in 

 observation and boundless memory for details and imagination which 

 absolutely rioted in the scenting out of subtle and often far-fetched 

 analogies." 



