l$6 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [i36i. 



botanists turning up their noses, and saying that he knows 

 nothing of British plants ! I was also pleased at his remarks 

 on classification, because it showed me that I wrote truly on 

 this subject in the • Origin.' I saw Bentham at the Linnean 

 Society, and had some talk with him and Lubbock, and 

 Edgeworth, Wallich, and several others. I asked Bentham 

 to give us his ideas of species ; whether partially with us or 

 dead against us, he would write excellent matter. He made 

 no answer, but his manner made me think he might do so if 

 urged ; so do you attack him. Every one was speaking with 

 affection and anxiety of Henslow.* I dined with Bell at the 



Linnean Club, and liked my dinner Dining out is 



such a novelty to me that I enjoyed it. Bell has a real good 

 heart. I liked Rolleston's paper, but I never read anything 

 so obscure and not self-evident as his ' Canons, 'f .... I 

 called on R. Chambers, at his very nice house in St. John's 

 Wood, and had a very pleasant half-hour's talk ; he is really 

 a capital fellow. He made one good remark and chuckled 

 over it, that the laymen universally had treated the contro- 

 versy on the ' Essays and Reviews ' as a merely professional 

 subject, and had not joined in it, but had left it to the clergy. 

 I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow.J 

 Farewell, with sincere sympathy, my old friend, 



C. Darwin. 



P.S. — We are very much obliged for the 'London Re- 

 view.' We like reading much of it, and the science is in- 

 comparably better than in the Athenceum. You shall not go 

 on very long sending it, as you will be ruined by pennies and 

 trouble, but I am under a horrid spell to the Athenceum and 



* Prof. Henslow was in his last illness. 



f George Rolleston, M. D., F. R. S., b. 1829, d. 1881. Linacre Pro- 

 fessor of Anatomy and Physiology at Oxford. A man of much learning, 

 who left but few published works, among which may be mentioned his 

 handbook, ' Forms of Animal Life.' For the' Canons,' see ' Nat. Hist. Re- 

 view,' 1861, p. 206. 



X Sir Joseph Hooker was Prof. Henslow's son-in-law. 



