Ɛpsilon

To Robert Patterson   6 April [1854]

DOWN, FARNBOROUGH, KENT

Ap. 6th. [1854]1

MY DEAR SIR

A sharp attack of unwellness2 has prevented my answering sooner your note of the 28th. ulto— Mr. Thompson sent me all his M.S. on Cirripeda & the whole of his collection, which filled a good sized box.3 I remember not long before his death returning all the M.S. & I feel almost sure I remember packing up all the specimens. I have looked in every likely place and can find none of his; but it is just possible that amongst the numbers sent me from various quarters, his may be overlooked. In the middle of summer or early autumn I intend returning every specimen which I have borrowed & shall then without fail discover whether I have any of your poor friends yet here.4 And in that case will communicate with you.—5 But I very strongly think that collection was returned. This instant my memory flashes across me that he, at my request, returned me one specimen for further examination (and which one I must somewhere have) but this demonstrates that the main collection had previously been returned to him.

Pray forgive this long note & believe me Dear Sir | Yours sincerely | C. DARWIN

1
The date as given in Praeger 1935, p. 713.
2
CD recorded in his Health diary (Down House MS) that on 30 March he felt ‘Very Poorly much vomiting Bad Boil’. He did not recover until 5 April.
3
William Thompson had died in 1852. CD had described cirripede specimens borrowed from him in Living Cirripedia (1851) and had noted that he ‘sent me the finest collection of British species, and their varieties, which I have seen, together with many very valuable MS. observations’ (ibid., pp. vi–vii). Patterson was the executor of Thompson’s natural history collection.
4
In his ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 5, Appendix I), CD recorded on 9 September 1854: ‘Finished packing up all my cirripedes.’
5
See letter to Robert Patterson, 21 August [1854]. Praeger 1935, p. 711, gives a transcription of a letter from Patterson to his wife Mary, dated 2 May 1854, in which Patterson described ‘some pleasant chat with Charles Darwin’ at a meeting of the Linnean Society of that date.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1565,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1565