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Summary
Another plea to take Scott on at Kew. Emma begs CD not to employ him at Down.
Has just received a long article on the Origin from D. J. Brown, an Edinburgh baker [see 4464].
Transcription
[Down]
19th
My dear Hooker
I will not plague you about Scott again; but do read enclosed.f1 I suppose I am prejudiced in his favour, but it seems to me a good note & only moderately unreasonable— Can you give him any hope of being taken at Kew?f2 I do not know how humble a place he would accept—
I am awfully tempted to have him here;f3 but Emma begs me rather to send him £100, as she thinks it would have kill me.— Moreover my under gardener is becoming a skilful crosser & most slow & cautious—f4 what men these Scotsmen are;f5 I have just had a long article on the Origin from an Edinburgh Baker; really wonderful in its originality & knowledge, but oh such spelling “hippothicis”f6 &c &c
Flourens has just published a book apparently pitching into me. in grand style—f7 I am going on capitally in health & 2 days ago put on a cloth coat.—
Farewell my dear old fellow | C. Darwin
Endorsement: Endorsement: `April /64′
Footnotes
- f1
- CD and Hooker had been corresponding throughout April 1864 regarding John Scott’s future; for the most recent letter between them, see the letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 April [1864]. CD enclosed the letter from John Scott, 14 April [1864].
- f2
- In his letter of [1 April 1864], CD had also asked Hooker about a position for Scott at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, but with a stipend supplied by CD. For Hooker’s replies, see the letters from J. D. Hooker, [2 April 1864] and [4 April 1864].
- f3
- See also letter to John Scott, 9 April 1864 and n. 4.
- f4
- CD refers to Henry Lettington (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 April [1864] and n. 11).
- f5
- CD refers not to his under-gardener, Lettington, who was born in Down, Kent (Census returns 1861 (Public Record Office, RG9/462: 70)), but probably to John Scott and to David J. Brown, an Edinburgh baker and geologist (see n. 6, below; see also letter from J. D. Hooker, 8 April 1864).
- f6
- CD refers to an unidentified manuscript that Brown enclosed with a letter that has not been found (see letter to D. J. Brown, 18 April 1864).
- f7
- Marie Jean Pierre Flourens, a French physiologist, published Examen du livre de M. Darwin sur l’origine des espèces (Flourens 1864). A lightly annotated copy is in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 234). For a discussion of Flourens 1864, see Tort 1996, 2: 1697. See also letter to A. R. Wallace, 15 June [1864], and letter to T. H. Huxley, 3 October [1864].