can walk eight miles without any particular fatigue. Life in the old dog yet! Walpole is a capital companion--knows a great many things, and talks well about them, so we get over the ground pleasantly.

April 20.

There was a long day of it yesterday looking over things in the Exhibition till late in the afternoon, and then a mighty dinner in St. Andrew's Hall given by a Piscatorial Society of which my host is President. It was a weary sitting of five hours with innumerable speeches. Of course I had to say "a few words," and if I can get a copy of the papers I will send them to you. I flatter myself they were words of wisdom, though hardly likely to contribute to my popularity among the fishermen.

[On the 21st he gave an address on the Herring. To describe the characteristics of this fish in the Eastern Counties, he says, might seem like carrying coals to Newcastle; nevertheless the fisherman's knowledge is not the same as that of the man of science, and includes none but the vaguest notions of the ways of life of the fish and the singularities of its organisation which perplexed biologists. His own study of the problems connected with the herring had begun nineteen years before, when he served on the first of his two Fishery Commissions; and one of his chief objects in this address was to insist upon a fact, borne out partly by the inquiries of the Commission, partly by later investigations in Europe and America, which it was difficult to make people appreciate, namely, the impossibility of man's fisheries affecting the numbers of the herring to any appreciable extent, a year's catch not amounting to the estimated number of a single shoal; while the flatfish and cod fisheries remove many of the most destructive enemies of the herring. Those who had not studied the question in this light would say that "it stands to reason" that vast fisheries must tend to exterminate the fish; apropos of which, he made his well-known remark, that in questions of biology] "if any one tells me 'it stands to reason' that such and such things must happen, I generally find reason to doubt the safety of his standing."

[This year, also, he began the investigations which completed former inquiries into the subject, and finally elucidated the nature of the salmon disease. The last link in the chain of evidence which proved its identity with a fungoid disease of flies, was not reached until March 1883; and on July 3 following he delivered a full account of the disease, its nature and origin, in an address at the Fisheries Exhibition in London.

In 1881, then, at the end of December, he went to North Wales to study on the fresh fish the nature of the epidemic of salmon disease which had broken out in the Conway, in spite of being in such bad health that he was persuaded to let his younger son come and look after him. But this was only a passing premonition of the breakdown which was to come upon him three years after.

One year's work as Inspector was very like another. In 1882, for instance, on January 21, he is at Berwick, "voiceless but jolly"; in the spring he had to attend a Fisheries Exhibition in Edinburgh, and writes:--]

April 12.

We have opened our Exhibition, and I have been standing about looking at the contents until my back is broken.

April 13.

The weather here is villainous--a regular Edinburgh "coorse day." I have seen all I wanted to see of the Exhibition, eaten two heavy dinners, one with Primrose and one with Young, and want to get home. Walpole and I are dining domestically at home this evening, having virtuously refused all invitations.

[In June he was in Hampshire; on July 25 he writes from Tynemouth:--]

I reached here about 5 o'clock, and found the bailiff or whatever they call him of the Board of Conservators, awaiting me with a boat at my disposal. So we went off to look at what they call "The Playground"--two bays in which the salmon coming from the sea rest and disport themselves until a fresh comes down the river and they find it convenient to ascend. Harbottle bailiff in question is greatly disturbed at the amount of poaching that goes on in the playground, and unfolded his griefs to me at length. It was a lovely evening, very calm, and I enjoyed my boat expedition. To-morrow there is to be another to see the operations of a steam trawler, which in all probability I shall not enjoy so much. I shall take a light breakfast.

[These were the pleasanter parts of the work. The less pleasant was sitting all day in a crowded court, hearing a disputed case of fishing rights, or examining witnesses who stuck firmly to views about fish which had long been exploded by careful observation. But on the whole he enjoyed it, although it took him away from research in other departments. This summer, on the death of Professor Rolleston, he was sounded on the question whether he would consent to accept the Linacre Professorship of Physiology at Oxford. He wrote to the Warden of Merton:--]

4 Marlborough Place, June 22, 1881.

My dear Brodrick,

Many thanks for your letter. I can give you my reply at once, as my attention has already been called to the question you ask; and it is that I do not see my way to leaving London for Oxford. My reasons for arriving at this conclusion are various. I am getting old, and you should have a man in full vigour. I doubt whether the psychical atmosphere of Oxford would suit me, and still more, whether I should suit it after a life spent in the absolute freedom of London. And last, but by no means least, for a man with five children to launch into the world, the change would involve a most serious loss of income. No doubt there are great attractions on the other side; and, if I had been ten years younger, I should have been sorely tempted to go to Oxford, if the University would have had me. But things being as they are, I do not see my way to any other conclusion than that which I have reached.

[The same feeling finds expression in a letter to Professor (afterwards Sir William) Flower, who was also approached on the same subject, and similarly determined to remain in London.]

July 21, 1881.

My dear Flower,

I am by no means surprised, and except for the sake of the University, not sorry that you have renounced the Linacre.

Life is like walking along a crowded street--there always seem to be fewer obstacles to getting along on the opposite pavement--and yet, if one crosses over, matters are rarely mended.

I assure you it is a great comfort to me to think that you will stay in London and help in keeping things straight in this world of crookedness.

I have thought a good deal about --, but it would never do. No one could value his excellent qualities of all kinds, and real genius in some directions, more than I do; but, in my judgment, nobody could be less fitted to do the work which ought to be done in Oxford--I mean to give biological science a status in the eyes of the Dons, and to force them to acknowledge it as a part of general education. Moreover, his knowledge, vast and minute as it is in some directions, is very imperfect in others, and the attempt to qualify himself for the post would take him away from the investigations, which are his delight and for which he is specially fitted...

I was very much interested in your account of the poor dear Dean's illness. I called on Thursday morning, meeting Jowett and Grove at the door, and we went in and heard such an account of his state that I had hopes he might pull through. We shall not see his like again.

The last time I had a long talk with him was about the proposal to bury George Eliot in the Abbey, and a curious revelation of the extraordinary catholicity and undaunted courage of the man it was. He would have done it had it been pressed upon him by a strong representation.

I see he is to be buried on Monday, and I suppose and hope I shall have the opportunity of attending.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[This letter refers to the death of his old friend Dean Stanley. The Dean had long kept in touch with the leaders of scientific thought, and it is deeply interesting to know that on her death-bed, five years before, his wife said to him as one of her parting counsels, "Do not lose sight of the men of science, and do not let them lose sight of you." "And then," writes Stanley to Tyndall, "she named yourself and Huxley."

Strangely enough, the death of the Dean involved another invitation to Huxley to quit London for Oxford. By the appointment of Dean Bradley to Westminster, the Mastership of University College was left vacant. Huxley, who was so far connected with the college that he had examined there for a science Fellowship, was asked if he would accept it, but after careful consideration declined. He writes to his son, who had heard rumours of the affair in Oxford:--]

4 Marlborough Place, November 4, 1881.

My dear Lens,

There is truth in the rumour; in so far as this that I was asked if I would allow myself to be nominated for the Mastership of University, that I took the question into serious consideration and finally declined.

But I was asked to consider the communication made to me confidential, and I observed the condition strictly. The leakage must have taken place among my Oxford friends, and is their responsibility, but at the same time I would rather you did not contribute to the rumour on the subject. Of course I should have told you if I had not been bound to reticence.

I was greatly tempted for a short time by the prospect of rest, but when I came to look into the matter closely there were many disadvantages. I do not think I am cut out for a Don nor your mother for a Donness--we have had thirty years' freedom in London, and are too old to put in harness.