To J. D. Hooker   19 [April 1864]

[Down]

19th

My dear Hooker

I will not plague you about Scott again; but do read enclosed.1 I suppose I am prejudiced in his favour, but it seems to me a good note & only moderately unreasonable— Can you give him any hope of being taken at Kew?2 I do not know how humble a place he would accept—

I am awfully tempted to have him here;3 but Emma begs me rather to send him £100, as she thinks it would have kill me.— Moreover my under gardener is becoming a skilful crosser & most slow & cautious—4 what men these Scotsmen are;5 I have just had a long article on the Origin from an Edinburgh Baker; really wonderful in its originality & knowledge, but oh such spelling “hippothicis”6 &c &c

Flourens has just published a book apparently pitching into me. in grand style—7 I am going on capitally in health & 2 days ago put on a cloth coat.—

Farewell my dear old fellow | C. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘April /64’

1
CD and Hooker had been corresponding throughout April 1864 regarding John Scott’s future; for the most recent letter between them, see the letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 April [1864]. CD enclosed the letter from John Scott, 14 April [1864].
2
In his letter of [1 April 1864], CD had also asked Hooker about a position for Scott at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, but with a stipend supplied by CD. For Hooker’s replies, see the letters from J. D. Hooker, [2 April 1864] and [4 April 1864].
5
CD refers not to his under-gardener, Lettington, who was born in Down, Kent (Census returns 1861 (Public Record Office, RG9/462: 70)), but probably to John Scott and to David James Brown, an Edinburgh baker and geologist (see n. 6, below; see also letter from J. D. Hooker, 8 April 1864).
6
CD refers to an unidentified manuscript that Brown enclosed with a letter that has not been found (see letter to D. J. Brown, 18 April 1864).
7
Marie Jean Pierre Flourens, a French physiologist, published Examen du livre de M. Darwin sur l’origine des espèces (Flourens 1864). A lightly annotated copy is in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 234). For a discussion of Flourens 1864, see Tort 1996, 2: 1697. See also letter to A. R. Wallace, 15 June [1864], and letter to T. H. Huxley, 3 October [1864].

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.2 £100] ‘£’ above ‘100’ in MS
2.3 skilful] ‘l’ over ‘f’
3.1 in grand style] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4468,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4468