ore
angelic in my feelings; yet I never shall forget his cordial shake of
the hand, when he was writing as spitefully as he possibly could against
me. But I have always thought that you have more cause than I to be
demoniacally inclined towards him. Bell told me that Owen says that the
editor mutilated his article in the "Edinburgh Review" (125/4. This is
the only instance, with which we are acquainted, of Owen's acknowledging
the authorship of the "Edinburgh Review" article.), and Bell seemed to
think it was rendered more spiteful by the Editor; perhaps the opposite
view is as probable. Oh, dear! this does not look like becoming more
angelic in my temper!

I had a splendid long talk with Lyell (you may guess how splendid, for
he was many times on his knees, with elbows on the sofa) (125/5. Mr.
Darwin often spoke of Sir Charles Lyell's tendency to take curious
attitudes when excited.) on his work in France: he seems to have done
capital work in making out the age of the celt-bearing beds, but the
case gets more and more complicated. All, however, tends to greater and
greater antiquity of man. The shingle beds seem to be estuary deposits.
I called on R. Chambers at his very nice house in St. John's Wood, and
had a very pleasant half-hour's talk--he is really a capital fellow. He
made one good remark and chuckled over it: that the laymen universally
had treated the controversy on the "Essays and Reviews" as a merely
professional subject, and had not joined in it but had left it to the
clergy. I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow. Farewell,
with sincere sympathy, my old friend.

P.S.--We are very much obliged for "London Review." We like reading much
of it, and the science is incomparably better than in the "Athenaeum."
You shall not go on very long sending it, as you will be ruined by
pennies and trouble; but I am under a horrid spell to the "Athenaeum"
and "Gardeners' Chronicle," both of which are intolerably dull, but I
have taken them in for so many years that I cannot give them up.
The "Cottage Gardener," for my purpose, is now far better than the
"Gardeners' Chronicle."

LETTER 126. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. Down, April 25 [1861].

I received this morning your "Unite de l'Espece Humaine" [published
in 1861], and most sincerely do I thank you for this your very kind
present. I had heard of and been recommended to read your articles, but,
not knowing that they were separately published, did not k