3/2 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [l86l. 



Gardeners' Chronicle, Poor dear Henslow, to whom I owe 

 much, is dying, and Hooker is with him. Many thanks for 

 two sets of sheets of your Proceedings. I cannot understand 

 what Agassiz is driving at. You once spoke, I think, of 

 Professor Bowen as a very clever man. I should have thought 

 him a singularly unobservant man from his writings. He 

 never can have seen much of animals, or he would have seen 

 the difference of old and wise dogs and young ones. His 

 paper about hereditariness beats everything. Tell a breeder 

 that he might pick out his worst individual animals and 

 breed from them, and hope to win a prize, and he would think 

 you . . . insane. 



[Professor Henslow died on May 16, 1861, from a complica- 

 tion of bronchitis, congestion of the lungs, and enlargement 

 of the heart. His strong constitution was slow in giving way, 

 and he lingered for weeks in a painful condition of weakness, 

 knowing that his end was near, and looking at death with 

 fearless eyes. In Mr. Blomefield's (Jenyns) 'Memoir of 

 Henslow' (1862) is a dignified and touching description of 

 Prof. Sedgwick's farewell visit to his old friend. Sedgwick 

 said afterwards that he had never seen "a human being 

 whose soul was nearer heaven." 



My father wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker on hearing of Henslow's 

 death, " I fully believe a better man never walked this earth.'* 



He gave his impressions of Henslow's character in Mr. 

 Blomefield's ' Memoir.' In reference to these recollections he 

 wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker (May 30, 1861) : 



" This morning I wrote my recollections and impressions of 

 character of poor dear Henslow about the year 1830. I liked 

 the job, and so have written four or five pages, now being 

 copied. I do not suppose you will use all, of course you can 

 chop and change as much as you like. If more than a sen- 

 tence is used, I should like to see a proof-page, as I never 

 can write decently till I see it in print Very likely some of 

 my remarks may appear too trifling, but I thought it best to 



