186 EETURN TO ENGLAND : AND VISIT TO PAEIS 
and the next da}^ ; he, as I said before, came twice fur me in 
my absence. He talked in the warmest manner of Mr. Brown, 
]\Iurchison,i and yourself, also of Darwin and Herschell. . . . 
His plan was now to visit the botanists at Brussels, and 
to biing back the plants that Blume and Siebold 2 had promised 
his father by taking Leyden and The Hague on his way home 
(with a digression, if possible, to Haarlem to hear the organ, 
and to Amsterdam to see Linnaeus' Lapland dress), and he adds 
later, ' I have seen such fine things lately from Blume and 
especially from Siebold that my regret is not so great at missing 
sight of Germany as it was a week ago.' 
But one or two difficulties loom ahead on this Netherland 
visit, though the kindly French botanists gave him no less than 
twenty-six letters of introduction. Siebold and Blume, to 
whom he wishes one of the four remaining copies of the 'Genera 
Filicum ' to be given as a return for gifts of plants, * are on 
dreadful terms ; I must manage between them.' More per- 
sonal to himself is the result of an outspoken review in the 
' London Journal of Botany.' 
Hombron is in very bad odour ; I want to see him, but 
Decaisne and Jussieu say he is boiling with rage at us, and 
that I must not go or there will be a row. I lind that that 
critique was well received here by those whose opinions are 
best worth having. At the Jardin the critique is considered 
quite fair as his work is a disgrace to France indeed, and that 
it is well to scold bad books as that gives a character to the 
Journal, and the latter is very weh thought of here, especially 
the review^ part. 
1 Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1702-1871) took up the study of geology 
after his marriage and retirement from the army. His chief studies lay among 
the ancient rocks of Wales and the Highlands of Scandinavia and Russia, where 
he assisted in the geological survey. His fame was secured by the establish- 
ment of the Silurian system. As President of the Geological Society twice, 
and of the Geographical for fifteen years, and director of the Geological Survey 
from 1855, he possessed large influence, enhanced by his wealth and social 
position. 
2 Philip Franz Siebold (1796-1866) spent six 3'ears from 1823 in Japan as 
doctor to a Dutch embassy, and became an authority on Japanese language, 
literature, and natural history. Then till 1859 he lived in Holland ; revisited 
Japan 1859-02, and thereafter settled in his native city, Wurzburg. Besides 
introducing many Japanese plants into Europe, he introduced the tea plant 
into Java. 
