Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC251
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, United Kingdom
JDH/2/22/2 f.84-85
Hodgson, Brian Houghton
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
6-12-1862
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Asa Gray Correspondence
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
8 page letter over 2 folios
 

JDH discusses the health of Brian Houghton Hodgson's wife. His own wife, Frances, has had a tooth out but otherwise the Hooker family are all well, he particularly mentions his son Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker "growing a pace in stature & wisdom". He mentions a rocking horse much loved by his children. Thomas Thomson & his wife spent some time at Kew & have now gone to Hastings. [Sir James William] Colvile's house is shut up. Mentions chatting with [Sir Lawrence] Peel & a coin expert named Mr. Thomas at the Athenaeum Club. [Charles] Lyell is still working on his 'age of man', JDH comments that he will struggle to reconcile his old geology with recent discoveries, including Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. [Thomas Henry] Huxley is working on a publication about the relation of men to lower animals, JDH is very impressed with it. Summarises & critiques [Richard] Owen's paper, read at the Royal Society, on the dinosaur Gryphosaurus & its relation to birds vs. reptiles. JDH notes that the paper actually backs up [Charles] Darwin's: "much disputed dogma" regarding the geological record. JDH mentions some of Darwin's work and praises him as 'the first naturalist in Europe...as great as any that ever lived'. Discusses the reception, by the press and clergy, of Bishop [John William] Colenso's writings on the interpretation of the Bible. Mentions the Schlagintweit's book.

Transcript

to be Reptilian. The most curious part of its history is its confirmation of Darwin's *10 much oppo disputed dogma, the "imperfection of the geological Record". This animal is only now found in the identical quarries that have been worked for all the lithographic stones used all over Europe, ever since lithography was an art!
Darwin still works away at his experiments & his theory, & startles us by the surprising discoveries he now makes in Botany, his work on the fertilization of orchids is quite unique, there is nothing in the whole range of Botanical literature to compare with it & this, with his other works "Journal", "Coral Reefs", "Volcanic Islands", "Geology of Beagle", "Anatomy &c of Cirripedes" & "Origins" raise him without doubt to the position of the first Naturalist in Europe, indeed I question if he

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Kew
Dec[ember] 6/[18]62
Dear Brian *1
I was very glad to find from your letter that you & Mrs Hodgson suffered nothing from the journey down to the West -- of the frightful danger to which the latter had been exposed we heard nothing or should have been greatly alarmed -- her escape without injury of any kind seems altogether miraculous, & I congratulate you heartily on the result, whether for the present escape or for the token it gives of her bodily strength.
We are all well & rather enjoying the relief of the exhibition being over. My wife *2 has had a troublesome tooth drawn & being by nature the very opposite of yours in regard to nervous temperament,

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I had a scene with a vengeance. My father & mother are both wonderfully well & active: my children ditto, & Brian *3 is growing a pace in stature & wisdom -- he is a very sagacious young gentleman! The Rocking--Horse has given unmitigated satisfaction & is not broken yet! it is a capital specimen & considered quite a work of art by the children, as well as a play thing.
Of mutual friends I have seen none lately but Thomson *4 who spent a month at Kew with his wife, both in poor health, & who are gone for the winter to Hastings. Colvile's *5 house is I see shut up. I encounter Peel *6 every now & then at the Athenaeum [Club]. Do you know Thomas a N[orth] W[est] man I believe, who is great in coins &c & I have often

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wanted to ask you about him, he seems to be a great gun in some matters. I often chat with him in Athenaeum.
You ask about Lyell *7, I saw him the other day, still polishing away at his work on age of man, which he told me would not be out before Xmas, which means not till an indefinite period after it -- he will have a pretty job, to reconcile all his old Geology & Biology to the new state of things brought about by the discoveries relative to the early condition of man, & the Darwinian controversy theory -- heresy -- truth -- or whatever else it be hight. Lyell accepts both & will be pitched into accordingly--he has the ear of the public however, & the rate of his work will be prodigious. It will

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be followed by a very clever & most amazing[?] one by Huxley *8, on the relations of men to the lower animals of which I have seen some sheets, it is amazingly clever -- this polemical Philosopher is resting on his spear at present, & giving over a little time to commit himself again. I heard a fraction of Owen's *9 paper on the Gryphosaurus at the R[oyal] S[ociety], it was very interesting but too verbose & minute, -- reading out all the measurements of minute parts to inches & lines &c. The general opinion was that Owen demonstrated its ornithic affinity & proved it to be a bird with the tail--feathers set on a jointed tail instead of the truculent hump that most birds have, but some say that there are peculiar bones or organs amongst the bones that may yet prove it

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to be Reptilian. The most curious part of its history is its confirmation of Darwin's *10 much oppo disputed dogma, the "imperfection of the geological Record". This animal is only now found in the identical quarries that have been worked for all the lithographic stones used all over Europe, ever since lithography was an art!
Darwin still works away at his experiments & his theory, & startles us by the surprising discoveries he now makes in Botany, his work on the fertilization of orchids is quite unique, there is nothing in the whole range of Botanical literature to compare with it & this, with his other works "Journal", "Coral Reefs", "Volcanic Islands", "Geology of Beagle", "Anatomy &c of Cirripedes" & "Origins" raise him without doubt to the position of the first Naturalist in Europe, indeed I question if he

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will not be regarded as great as any that ever lived: his power of observation, memory & judgement seem prodigious, his industry indefatigable & his sagacity in planning experiments, fertility of resources & care in conducting then are unrivalled -- and all this with health so detestable that his life is a curse to him & more than half his days & weeks are spent in inaction -- in forced idleness of mind & body.
Of Bishop Colenso& his writings *11 I cannot say much, I have heard his book discussed repeatedly but have not read it & sometimes by clergymen, & by these always with a total want of candor[sic], -- but candor in a clergyman when discussing theological quotations, is a thing almost unknown -- one will not read the book, another has & can see nothing in it, a third sees plenty in it & says all

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educated clergymen knew this, but rightly hide it from the laity but it should do mischief, -- as if truth could do mischief! The most candid clerical disputant I met with would allow the freest & fullest discussion but only in Latin!
The Press is I regret to say not one whit more truthful, one paper fills its columns with a few mistakes of the authors, -- another condenses "cobweb theories" (a curious name for plain facts) -- a third considers Arithmetic & common sense not applicable to the case, a fourth wonders what all the fuss is about, & says it is all true but of no consequence & so on. The queer fact that our youth when educated for clergy are systematically kept in ignorance of there being opinions on these subjects, & left till after they have sworn to an uncompromising belief before they can find out what it is they have sworn to -- is ignored

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by all. No doubt but Colenso will be followed by a host of men, good, bad and indifferent, whose eyes once opened their tongues will be let loose. The worst of it is that the present condition of things prevents the rising talent & candid thinkers from entering the X *12 at all, & we shall be bepastored with fools, knaves, or imbeciles.
I have heard nothing whatever of the Schlagintweit[']s *13 & their book for many months, what have you? I have no copy -- nor am I likely to get one, indeed I should not care, for more than a plate or two to frame & hang up. If I hear any thing I will let you know.
I have ordered your panthers, shall I have them mounted with a glass cover like mine when they come? With united[?] aff[ectionate] regards
I am dear Brian | Yours aff[ectionate]ly | J. D. Hooker [signature]

ENDNOTES


1. Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801--1894). A pioneer naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British civil servant. Joseph Hooker stayed at Hodgson’s house in Darjeeling periodically during his expedition to India and the Himalayas, 1847--1851, and named one of his sons after him.
2. Frances Harriet Henslow (1825--1874) Hooker's first wife.
3. Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker (1860--1932) Hooker's fifth child, named after Brian Houghton Hodgson.
4. Thomas Thomson (1817--1878), surgeon with the East India Company before becoming a botanist. Friend of Hooker who helped him to write the first volume of Flora Indica.
5. Sir James William Colvile (1810 -- 1880) was a British lawyer, civil servant and then judge in India. It was in Calcutta [Kolkata] that he became acquainted with Joseph Hooker, during the altters ecpeditioln to India (1848--1851).
6. Sir Lawrence Peel (1799--1884), lawyer and later Chief Justice of Calcutta, where he met Joseph Hooker. On returning to England in 1856 he became a member of the Privy Council and judicial committee and 1857 was appointed Director of the East India Company.
7. Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS (1797--1875), a British lawyer and geologist.
8. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825--1895), zoologist and, amongst other positions, President of the Royal Society of London, 1883--1885
9. Richard Owen (1804--1872), biologist, palaeontologist and founding Director of the Natural History Museum, he disagreed publicly with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.
10. Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (1809--1882) English naturalist and geologist
11. John William Colenso (1814--1883), first Church of England Bishop of Natal, mathematician, theologian, Biblical scholar and social activist. The writings referredto are probably his critique: The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined, which questions whether these parts of the bible should be accepted as historically and literally accurate. The first volume appeared in 1862.
12. 'X' or cross symbol used by Hooker as shorthand for 'church'.
13. Brothers Adolf Schlagintweit (1829--1857), Robert Schlagintweit (1833--1885) and Hermann Schlagintweit (1826--1882) were explorers and botanists, commissioned to conduct a study into the Earth's magnetic field.

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