i86o.] 'GARDENERS' CHRONICLE.' 267 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, 1 4th [January, 1860]. 



I heard from Lyell this morning, and he tells 



me a piece of news. You are a good-for-nothing man ; here 

 you are slaving yourself to death with hardly a minute to spare, 

 and you must write a review on my book ! I thought it * a 

 very good one, and was so much struck with it, that I sent it 

 to Lyell. But I assumed, as a matter of course, that it was 

 Lindley's. Now that I know it is yours, I have re-read it, and 

 my kind and good friend, it has warmed my heart with all the 

 honourable and noble things you say of me and it. I was a 

 good deal surprised at Lindley hitting on some of the remarks, 

 but I never dreamed of you. I admired it chiefly as so well 

 adapted to tell on the readers of the Gardeners' Chronicle ; 

 but now I admire it in another spirit. Farewell, with hearty 



thanks Lyell is going at man with an audacity that 



frightens me. It is a good joke ; he used always to caution 

 me to slip over man. 



[In the Gardeners' Chronicle, Jan. 21, 1860, appeared a 

 short letter from my father, which was called forth by 

 Mr. Westwood's communication to the previous number of 

 the journal, in which certain phenomena of cross-breeding are 

 discussed in relation to the ' Origin of Species.' Mr. West- 

 wood wrote in reply (Feb. n), and adduced further evidence 

 against the doctrine of descent, such as the identity of the 

 figures of ostriches on the ancient " Egyptian records," with 

 the bird as we now know it The correspondence is hardly 

 worth mentioning, except as one of the very few cases in 

 which my father was enticed into anything resembling a 

 controversy.] 



* Gardeners' Chronicle, 1860. plete impartiality, so as not to 

 Referred to above, at p. 260. Sir commit Lindley. 

 J. D. Hooker took the line of com- 



