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Darwin Correspondence Project

From Leonard Jenyns   28 May 1862

1. Darlington Place | Bath

May 28th. 1862

My dear Darwin,

It was a great pleasure to get your letter yesterday, & to have your testimony in favour of my memoir of our departed friend.—1 You are thoroughly qualified to judge of its faithfulness as a correct portrait, as well as of any value it may possess in a scientific & literary point of view,—from your intimate acquaintance with Henslow, & with the subjects to which he devoted so much of his attention.—2 I had previously received letters from Berkeley & others equally satisfactory in respect of their judgment,—3so I am inclined to hope the book will not be altogether a failure, as I was afraid it might turn out.— Some might wish for a longer biography,—but there scarce materials for it,—were it desirable.

I may take this opportunity of stating that I made many inquiries after Hope in Bath some time back, from what you stated in a former letter,—but I could hear nothing of him.4 None of the letter carriers at the Post Office knew any one of that name in the town, at least a clergyman.— I think it must have been a mistake of yours—supposing he was here. I know him very well, & should have been glad to see him: I think also he would have found me out, had he been in the place.—

I am sorry to hear you are still in indifferent health.— I thank you for your inquiries after myself,5 & am thankful to report myself quite well at this present time,—though not quite so strong as formerly, nor equal to taking the same long Nat. Hist. rambles, in which I delighted.—

With best wishes, believe me, | My dear Darwin, | Very Sincerely Yours | L. Jenyns.

Footnotes

Henslow was professor of botany at Cambridge University from 1827 to 1861; CD was a member of Christ’s College, Cambridge, from 1827 to 1831 and studied under Henslow. The two formed a close association that was maintained until Henslow’s death in May 1861 (see Correspondence vol. 9 and Appendix X; see also Barlow ed. 1967).
The botanist Miles Joseph Berkeley, who had known Henslow in his early days at Cambridge and before, also contributed recollections to Jenyns’s memoir of Henslow (Jenyns 1862, pp. 55–7).
CD mistakenly believed that the entomologist Frederick William Hope had moved to Bath (see letter to Leonard Jenyns, 24 January [1862]). Hope died in London on 15 April 1862 (DNB).

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.

Jenyns, Leonard. 1862. Memoir of the Rev. John Stevens Henslow, late rector of Hitcham, and professor of botany in the University of Cambridge. London: John Van Voorst.

Summary

Pleased with CD’s opinion of the Henslow Memoir [L. Jenyns, Memoir of the Rev. John Stevens Henslow (1862)]

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-3573
From
Leonard Jenyns/Leonard Blomefield
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Bath
Source of text
DAR 168: 57
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3573,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3573.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10

letter