360 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxiv 



On the 2 1 St, after the general meeting of the Association, 

 which wound up the proceedings, the Historical Society 

 of Lancashire and Cheshire presented a diploma of honorary 

 membership and a gift of books to Huxley, Sir G. Stokes, 

 and Sir J. Hooker, the last three Presidents of the British 

 Association, and to Professors Tyndall and Rankine and 

 Sir J. Lubbock, the lecturers at Liverpool. Then Huxley 

 was presented with a mazer bowl lined with silver, made 

 from part of one of the roof timbers of the cottage occupied 

 as his headquarters by Prince Rupert during the siege of 

 Liverpool. He was rather taken aback when he found the 

 bowl was filled with champagne ; after a moment, however, 

 he drank " success to the good old town of Liverpool," and 

 with a wave of his hand, threw the rest on the floor, saying, 

 " I pour this as a libation to the tutelary deities of the 

 town." 



The same evening he was the guest of the Sphinx Club 

 at dinner at the Royal Hotel, his friend Mr. P. H. Rathbone 

 being in the chair, and in proposing the toast of the town 

 and trade of Liverpool, declared that commerce was a 

 greater civiliser than all the religion and all the science ever 

 put together in the world, for it taught men to be truthful 

 and punctual and precise in the execution of their engage- 

 ments, and men who were truthful and punctual and precise 

 in the execution of their engagements had put their feet 

 upon the first rung of the ladder which led to moral and 

 intellectual elevation. 



There were the usual clerical attacks on the address, 

 among the rest a particularly violent one from a Unitarian 

 pulpit. Writing to Mr. Samuelson on October 5 he says : — 



Be not vexed on account of the godly. They will have their 



way. I found Mr. 's sermon awaiting me on my return 



home. It is an able paper, but like the rest of his cloth he will 

 not take the trouble to make himself acquainted with the ideas 

 of the man whom he opposes. At least that is the case if he 

 imagines be brings me under the range of his guns. 



On October 2 he writes to Tyndall : — 

 I have not yet thanked you properly for your great con- 

 tribution to the success of our meeting l_i.e. his lecture " On the 



