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NATURALISTS. 



275 



paintings, and collections, and organ. " I was shown into a 

 huge bedroom with furniture a hundred years old : it looked 

 out into the lovely lawn and garden, with background of 

 spreading trees. Sir W. called me before six in the morning, 

 that we might finish the shells, and walked with me part of the 

 way, as I declined the carriage. I got a capital breakfast at 

 Morpeth, for fourpence, and met my friend Mr. Westley at 

 the station ; " with whom he visited the Aluminium works 

 at Washington (" where George Washington's family came 

 from"). 



On his way home, he explored Durham Cathedral, and 

 was much impressed by its architecture and noble situation ; 

 and slept at York. " I got up at half-past five, and went 

 straight to the dear old Minster. Of course it was shut ; but 

 I knew the organ-builders were at work : so I went to a con- 

 cealed side-door which I knew, and put in my thumb in a place 

 I knew, and to my joy it opened. . . . The morning sun 

 broke through the coloured glass of the east window, eighty 

 feet high, as I had never seen it before, except the memorable 

 morning after the fire " (p. 23). 



He attended one more meeting of the Association, that at 

 Bath the next year, as he wished to be present at the Nomen- 

 clature discussion. To Dr. Henry, who was not a naturalist, 

 but was eminent in physical science, Philip had written : " I 

 fully agree with all you say about naturalists and their speci- 

 mens. But don't judge them all. Please regard the collectors 

 as you would your recorders of meteoric observations: they 

 accumulate the facts for others to work from. . . . Even 

 Newton postponed the law of gravitation many years, for want 

 of accurate observations. Our science is as though you wanted 

 to deduce laws of meteorology and electricity from a vast mass 

 of unsorted and badly observed facts. Either you must throw 

 Natural History overboard, or you must give us time. I came 

 back from London sickened with fresh developments of the 

 way these trading naturalists do their work. If they would do 

 nothing, it would be a blessing. We have got to undo their errors, 

 before we can do our work ; or else we increase said errors. 



