himself would have been unable to detect one turn of the snob in him. As the student that meant well at college and would have only reputable associates, so he is not ashamed in after life to confess, on hint of Lyell's, that he has "the true English instinctive reverence for rank, and therefore liked to hear about the Princess Royal." It is with perfect openness he tells this same Lyell, “I dined at Chevening with Lord Mahon, who did me the great honour of calling on me I was charmed with Lady Mahon, and any one might have been proud at the pieces of agreeableness which came from her beautiful lips with respect to you-I like old Lord Stanhope very much, though he abused Geology and Zoology heartily as all fiddle-faddle-I sometimes, after being a whole week employed, and having described perhaps only two species (of Cirrepedes), agree mentally with Lord Stanhope that it is all fiddle-faddle."

I know of only two occasions on which there is the slightest edge of a glimpse of snobbery on the part of Charles Darwin, and one of them, even if it were not frankly intentional (which it is), is not without a certain innocency and charm. He wants, namely, the son's opinion (who is as yet only Joseph) in regard to nuts found in Petrels' maws; but Sir W. Milner, Bart., being concerned, he asks him (Sir. W.) to write to the father— "for grandeur's sake!" ("I have asked him (but I doubt whether he will) to send a nut to Sir William Hooker (I gave this address for grandeur's sake) to see if any of you can name it and its native country-will you please mention this to Sir William Hooker?")

The other reference is to a remark-a sufficiently innocent one that occurs by the bye-in a charming letter of Mr. Darwin's from a Water-Cure to his wife (ii. 114). "And then," he says there, "I read a bit of my novel, which is feminine, etc.-I say feminine, for the author

is not much of a lady-she makes her men say, 'My Lady.'" Of course, I suppose it is only a servant, specially the lady's maid, that says, "My Lady," nowadays. But is it then so much better with the term Ladyship? Yet Mr. Darwin himself concludes a letter to Lady Dorothy Nevill (iii. 327) with such phrases as these: "And this I owe to your Ladyship's great kindness." "Your Ladyship's very gratefully." Most men know about Carlyle, and they are aware that he would not, even by mere expression, so prostrate himself as to say "My Lord." "I have no pocket definition of justice for Your Lordship, said one ancient figure, not then engaged in smoking, but if Your Lordship does not already know what justice is, then "-significantly pointing downwards! Carlyle, if he had known it, would, in all probability, have committed himself much less by a "My Lord" than by " Your Lordship." It is so pleasant to say "How do you do, my Lord! in the entrance or on the stairs of one's club, that it will be long, it is likely, before such institution can do without the phrase. Emerson seemed inclined to be impatient of a "Lord," even if you told him, "Lord so and so is a great admirer of yours;" but he thought the simple Mr. of an English gentleman a higher title than that of any crowned head in Christendom. And as a very special example of the rococo of titles, fancy this inscription of Kant's to a Herr Bohlius: "To the Right-nobly born, Right-larned, and Right-skilful Master, Mr. John Christofer Bohlius, Doctor of Medicine and Second Ordinary Professor in the Academy of Königsberg, as also Royal Bodyphysician, my specially highly to be honoured Patron," etc. etc. Surely Bohlius himself ought, like Dogberry, to have thought himself very specially "written down an ass!"

Perhaps, then, with this current of ideas in our mind,

it was a little snobbish in Mr. Darwin-especially after his own Your Ladyship" and "Your Ladyship "—to call the poor authoress "not much of a lady," because in the novel which she wrote, her men said "My Lady."

CHAPTER IX.

CHARLES DARWIN-CONTINUED.

BUT even with such pleasant little conventionalisms exceptively to smile at, Charles Darwin had nothing of ignoble or vulgar in his nature.

He was naturally

gentle, and he was naturally firm. He was naturally σTovdaîos, too-strenuus; always at work or in earnest. He knew "the golden rule for saving time:" he took care of the minutes. On board the Beagle he was indefatigable. He "studied attentively" Lyell; he watched his net at the stern, collecting, dissecting, describing its occasional contents; he wrote his Journal "during some part of the day, taking much pains to describe carefully and vividly all that he had seen; and this," he ingenuously adds, "was good practice." On shore he was in every way active, both as geologist and naturalist. These "various special studies were, however" (his own words)" of no importance compared with the habit of energetic industry and of concentrated attention to whatever I was engaged in, which I then acquired. Everything about which I thought or read was made to bear directly on what I had seen or was likely to see; and this habit of mind was continued I feel sure that it during the five years of the voyage. was this training which has enabled me to do whatever "I worked to the utmost," he

I have done in science."

says again," from the mere pleasure of investigation, and from my strong desire to add a few facts to the great mass of facts in natural science. But I was also ambitious to take a fair place among scientific men." It is very characteristic of the true man that, however he be when in the work, he yet, in his very truth, shivers before the work. And so, in his very strength, in his very ambition, in his very conscientiousness (which was an absolute one), he cannot help saying to his sister, “I feel my blood run cold at the quantity I have to do." It was precisely the same state of mind that led him to express a fear to Henslow as to whether he noted the right facts, and as to whether they were of sufficient importance. But let him in this his conscientiousness, and in that his industry, have acquired what habit he may, it must still be said that, in his very being, Charles Darwin was nothing if not tenacious.

We may indeed see that Charles Darwin was this (tenacious) from his infancy; for he was but a child when he signalised his tenacity by collecting all sorts of things -shells, seals, franks, coins, minerals, and by his perseverance in the attempts to make out the names of plants. He would sit for hours watching the float of his fishing-rod. He would read for hours the historical plays of Shakespeare. He "can boast that he read the Excursion twice through;" and, I doubt not, had it occurred to him, he might have been celebrated as the only man (or boy) that had ever read through the Faery Qucene once. It was tenacity enabled him to recover his school standard of knowledge when he wanted to go to college, and so also always to pass his Little-gos and Great-gos there. He read Sir Joshua Reynolds simply through tenacity, and became for the instant quite an expert in painting; nor was it different with his application to music. "I have often heard him say," and it