Dear Darwin

I write only to say thank you, & that I hear from Stainton that Wollaston’s affairs are so far past praying for, that any good accrueing to him of the kind, would only go to the Creditors: & get out of the way he must, to Boulogne or Jersey—¹ Still Stainton hopes that he may shake off liabilities after some years & return   Steps have been taken by a friend of his to keep the collection together—& books.—

I have been reading the Introduction to his Cape de Verd Coleopterology—² how very badly he writes & how nicely he manages to give the go bye to every really worthy idea or conclusion— yet it seems to me to be most valuable matter, & no doubt very accurate. What do you think of the “Wholesale Euphorbian onslaught—for the benefit of mere Indian Corn, and the downfall of that noble-Beetle population which had hitherto reigned supreme”!!!³ By Jove, Eyre’s Executioners were a joke to this⁴—& mind you, he visited the Island during a frightful famine—

I enjoyed my Barton visit exceedingly.—⁵ Prof Newton⁶ was there, a very agreeable & intelligent man, though he does believe in Progression—& Darwinism— also a very nice girl a Miss M^cMurdo, dau^r of the general, & niece of a shipmate of mine,⁷ who when asked whether she had liked dolls as a child, said, I never had but one, a superb one with eyes & trousseau &c, & all I did was, to put it in a drawer & say—“lie there, & when I open the drawer again I hope to find you dead”

I cannot fancy Wollaston really disliking you & not me—& worse. this book of his however shows a very odd type of mind, or rather of intellect especially if you remember that it is in some sort (& not the narrowest sort) an Educated one. How very much we liked him at Down.⁸

Lubbock⁹ comes to me for a night tomorrow.

Ever Yr affec | J D Hooker

I have been trying to read the D. of Argyll, & cannot get through it—prejudice apart.¹⁰

P.S. | What about backing Asa Gray as Foreign Member of R.S.— I will go ahead if you really think right to support it. Thomson wishes it & I quite approve¹¹

My only doubt is whether ADC. is as worthy— as a Botanist he is far away inferior but A Gray has done nothing like the “Geographie”¹²