Ɛpsilon

To Edward Cresy   [19 October 1860]1

15, Marine Parade, | Eastbourne.

My dear Sir,

I am extremely much obliged for your note of the 16th,2 forwarded to me here, where we stay one more week.3 But I grieve to say your letter contained no enclosure, i.e. Hofman’s letter.4 I hope that you will ere this have discovered that it was not enclosed. On my return home, I shall be very glad to read Dr. Taylor’s work,5 which shall be returned in about a fortnight’s time. I am particularly obliged to you for remembering my wish, and I have become more than ever interested in the subject. Thanks for news about B. Museum,6 which I have not read.

The Sea has done my daughter some good, but she is still very weak. The weather has been utterly dismal here.

With many thanks, | Yours very sincerely, | C. Darwin.

Copy

1
Dated by the relationship to the letter to Edward Cresy, 14 October [1860], and by the reference to the Darwins remaining in Eastbourne ‘one more week’ (see n. 3, below).
2
The letter has not been found. It was a reply to questions posed by CD in his letter to Edward Cresy, 14 October [1860].
3
Although the Darwins intended to return to Down on 26 October, they had to revise their plans when Henrietta Emma Darwin fell ill again unexpectedly. They did not return to Down until 10 November 1860 (‘Journal’; Appendix II).
4
Cresy apparently intended to forward to CD a letter from the chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann answering questions CD had posed in his letter to Edward Cresy, 14 October [1860].
5
Taylor 1848.
6
Cresy may have related in his letter the final opinion of the Parliamentary select committee appointed to consider the relocation of the natural history collections of the British Museum. The committee, which published its report in August 1860, rejected the proposed move in favour of expanding the existing facilities at the Bloomsbury site (eport from the select committee on the British Museum‘, Reports from Committees: Public Institutions; British Museum; Kensington Museum, session 24 January – 28 August 1860, 16: 173–525). The Metropolitan Board of Works, of which Cresy was assistant clerk, was asked by the committee to evaluate the building costs of various architects’ plans. CD had signed two memorials concerning the proposed move in 1858 (see Correspondence vol. 7 and Appendix VI).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2933,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2933