ather curious evidence (from a
similarity in error) that Chambers must be the author of the
"Vestiges": your case strikes me as some confirmation. I have written an
unreasonably long and dull letter, so farewell. (16/4. "Explanations: A
Sequel to the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" was published
in 1845, after the appearance of the fourth edition of the "Vestiges,"
by way of reply to the criticisms on the original book. The "K.
cabbage" referred to at the beginning of the paragraph is Pringlea
antiscorbutica," the "Kerguelen Cabbage" described by Sir J.D. Hooker in
his "Flora Antarctica." What Chambers wrote on this subject we have not
discovered. The mention of Sedgwick is a reference to his severe review
of the "Vestiges" in the "Edinburgh Review," 1845, volume 82, page 1.
Darwin described it as savouring "of the dogmatism of the pulpit" ("Life
and Letters," I., page 344). Mr. Ireland's edition of the "Vestiges"
(1844), in which Robert Chambers was first authentically announced as
the author, contains (page xxix) an extract from a letter written by
Chambers in 1860, in which the following passage occurs, "The April
number of the 'Edinburgh Review"' (1860) makes all but a direct amende
for the abuse it poured upon my work a number of years ago." This is the
well-known review by Owen, to which references occur in the "Life and
Letters," II., page 300. The amende to the "Vestiges" is not so full
as the author felt it to be; but it was clearly in place in a paper
intended to belittle the "Origin"; it also gave the reviewer (page 511)
an opportunity for a hit at Sedgwick and his 1845 review.)

LETTER 17. TO L. BLOMEFIELD [JENYNS]. Down. February 14th [1845].

I have taken my leisure in thanking you for your last letter and
discussion, to me very interesting, on the increase of species. Since
your letter, I have met with a very similar view in Richardson, who
states that the young are driven away by the old into unfavourable
districts, and there mostly perish. When one meets with such unexpected
statistical returns on the increase and decrease and proportion of
deaths and births amongst mankind, and in this well-known country of
ours, one ought not to be in the least surprised at one's ignorance,
when, where, and how the endless increase of our robins and sparrows is
checked.

Thanks for your hints about terms of "mutation," etc.; I had some
suspicions that it was not quite correct, and yet I do not see my