From T. H. Huxley   10 October [1862]1

My dear Darwin

‘The smallest contribution thankfully received’ from you—

You shall receive a proof in due time2

Ever | Yours truly | T H Huxley

Jermyn St Octr. 10th

I can’t find anything to talk to the working men about this year but your book— I mean to give them a commentary à la Coke upon Lyttleton.—3

1
The year is established by the reference to T. H. Huxley 1863b (see n. 3, below).
2
The reference is apparently to CD’s notice, ‘“Auditory-sac” of Cirripedes’, which was published in the January 1863 number of the Natural History Review (see letter to Natural History Review, [before 10 October 1862]). Huxley was editor-in-chief of the Natural History Review.
3
The Government School of Mines in Jermyn Street, London, at which Huxley was professor of natural history, ran a popular series of lectures for artisans every winter. In 1862, Huxley’s lecture series was entitled ‘On our knowledge of the causes of the phenomena of organic nature’ (T. H. Huxley 1863b; see Bibby 1959, pp. 97–100 and Montagu ed. 1968, pp. vi–vii). The reference is to the commentary by Edward Coke (Coke 1628) on Thomas Littleton’s fifteenth-century treatise on English law (Littleton c. 1481), commonly referred to as ‘Coke upon Littleton’ (B. E. Smith 1894, D. M. Walker 1980).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3756,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3756