thirty or forty things which he asked me particulars
about." Humboldt was then seventy-six years of age. Hooker's impression
of the Paris botanists was not favourable; he speaks of their habit of
telling him of the magnitude of their own researches, "while of those of
their neighbours they seem to know very little indeed." Of Decaisne,
however, he speaks with warm appreciation. He would have been surprised
if a prophet had told him that he was to be instrumental in bringing out
an English version of Decaisne's well-known book.

In 1845 Hooker acted as a deputy for Graham, the Professor of Botany at
Edinburgh. In May he wrote to his father, "I am lecturing away like a
house on fire. I was not in the funk I expected, though I had every
reason to be in a far greater one." Finally, when Graham died, Balfour,
the father of the present holder of the office, was elected professor,
and Hooker was fortunately freed from a post that would have been a fatal
tie to his career.

But happier events followed; he became engaged to Frances, daughter of
Professor Henslow. Sir William spoke of the affair with a certain
pomposity: "I believe Miss Henslow to be an amiable and well-educated
person of most respectable though not high connections, and from all that
I have seen of her, well suited to Joseph's habits and pursuits." Their
engagement was a long one, and their marriage could not take place till
after his Indian journey, which was the next event of importance in his
career.

On the voyage out, he was fortunate in becoming known to Lord Dalhousie,
and the friendship built up in the course of the journey and afterwards
in India "showed itself in unstinted support of Hooker." It was,
however, "a personal appreciation of the man rather than of the
scientific investigator." Indeed, Lord Dalhousie, "a perfect specimen of
the miserable system of education pursued at Oxford," had a "lamentably
low opinion" of science.

At Darjiling began Hooker's "lifelong friendship with a very remarkable
character, Brian Hodgson," {122a} administrator and scholar, who had "won
equal fame as Resident at the court of Nepal and as a student of Oriental
lore." Mr L. Huxley points out that "if the friendship with Lord
Dalhousie provided the key that opened official barriers and made
Hooker's journeyings possible, the friendship with Hodgson more than
anything else made them a practical success."

I shall not attempt to follow Hooker through hi