1887 unmerited. I had resolved never to return to the subject, and, though very angrily attacked in respect to it by Dr. Krause in his German work Charles Darwin was advised to say no more unless attacked in English. In Luck or Cunning?, therefore, published a year ago, I refrained even from remote allusion to it. Now that Mr. Francis Darwin has reopened the matter let me ask why he has omitted to refer his readers to my book Unconscious Memory and to my letter to Nature, February 3rd, 1881, in both which places he is well aware that I stated the case with far greater fulness than in your columns or in The St. James's Gazette ; and why does he not refer to some English publication for a statement of his father's case, instead of to a German book which few of his readers are likely to see?

In Unconscious Memory I have explained that the letter to myself, in which Mr. Francis Darwin says his father expressed his regret, was in reality an aggravation of the offence. It is very short; why, I wonder, if it was a sufficient expression of regret, has not Mr. Francis Darwin printed it? He now contends that I brought a charge of falsehood against his father so frivolous that there can have been no necessity to reply to it. I, on the other hand, contend that Mr. Francis Darwin is trying to justify at my expense a high-handed action of his father's and to evade challenges repeatedly made which neither the late Mr. Darwin nor any of his successors has ever ventured to take up. I repeat, then, that the late Mr. C. Darwin's pretended translation of Dr. Krause's article was a garbled, antedated, and hence misleading version; that Mr. Darwin knew the article had, since its original publication, been manipulated in a sense seriously hostile to me and favourable to himself; that, in spite of this knowledge, he said in his preface to Erasmus Darwin that he was giving the original article; expressly stated that my own book had appeared subsequently to this, though he knew that what he was giving to the public had been modified by the light of, and turned into an attack on, my book; and on complaint from me he took not one single step towards a public correction of his misstatement. S. BUTLER.

17.

Butler in "The Academy" (17 Dec. 1887).

"Erasmus Darwin" and "Evolution Old and New."

LONDON, Dec. 14, 1887.

On Saturday last a new edition of the late Mr. Charles Darwin's Erasmus Darwin was advertised, of which till then I

THE BUTLER-DARWIN QUARREL

467

knew nothing. In this edition a foot-note, which runs as 1887 follows, is added to the original preface:

Mr. Darwin accidentally omitted to mention that Dr. Krause revised, and made certain additions to, his essay before it was translated. Among these additions is an allusion to Mr. Butler's book, Evolution Old and New.

Mr. Francis Darwin, who appears to be responsible for this foot-note, fails to see that what I have always complained of was not an accidental omission, but a deliberate suppressio veri. In the original preface the late Mr. Darwin told his readers he was giving them a certain article and went out of his way to state expressly that "Mr. Butler's work, Evolution Old and New,” had appeared "since the publication of that article. When Mr. Darwin said this he knew that he was not giving the original article which he said he was giving. He knew that Dr. Krause had recast his article, had had Evolution Old and New before him while doing so, and had turned the revision into an attack upon that book. It is idle to say that Mr. Darwin did not know he was suppressing a material point, which, if expressed, would have done away with the appearance of independent condemnation of my views which, as it was, was offered to the public.

In his recently published Autobiography Mr. Darwin refers to his Erasmus Darwin as follows:

In 1879 I had a translation of Dr. Ernst Krause's Life of Erasmus Darwin published, and I added a sketch of his character and habits from material in my possession. Many persons have been much interested with this little life, and I am surprised that only 800 or 900 copies were sold.

There is not here a word of compunction about the alleged oversight. The only thing that seems to exercise him is that he did not sell more copies; and yet in Mr. Francis Darwin's Life and Letters of his father we read that "he had a keen sense of the honour that ought to reign among authors, and had a horror of any kind of laxness in quoting" (vol. I. p. 157).

Mr. Francis Darwin has now stultified his father's original preface; and this, I suppose, I ought to take as an amende. Very well, I take it, somewhat, I am afraid, in the same spirit as that in which it is offered; and shall return to the silence which I had kept for some years and which, if Mr. Francis Darwin had not recently reopened the subject, I should not have broken.

SAMUEL BUtler.

85 p. 23.

Theobald's correspondence with his father found by Ernest and given to myself on Theobald's death. 51.

1825 spring Theobald took his degree p. 58.

autumn was ordained p. 58.

1825 Nov. went over first to the Allabys.

1831 July-married-p. 93.

1832 January. I go and stay with them. Ellen

born.

1835 Ernest born Sep. 6.

1838 Old Pontifex died æt. 73 or in the 734 year. 1836 Sep. Joseph Pontifex born Vol. I. pt. 2. p. 18. 1837 Aug. the daughter born.

1848 Jany. He is 12 and goes to school. Chap. xxii.

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH

1848 Jany. He goes to school.

1849 Augt. his aunt Alethæa goes down.
1850 Easter she dies.

469

Ellen went to Battersby aged 18. born 1832.

1851 Mids. his bad character.

1854 Oct. He goes to Cambridge.

1856 Sep. 6. came of age.

1858 Feb. took his degree.

"

Ember weeks was ordained and goes up to
London.

1859 Spring, wrote his mad letters.

Mar. 26 was arrested.

"

Sep. 28

released.

Oct. 15

married-he just turned 24.

1860 Easter prosperous-his wife begins to drink.

1860 Sep. a girl born.

A boy »

1862

1862

All his prosperity now at an end. His wife ruins him.

Then he saw

Ap. 15. Goes abroad with me.

1863 Sep. 5 is 28 yrs. old and comes into his

money.

November. Xtina dies.

1867 Chap. xlvi. and chap. lxxxxix.

1881 Theobald died.

ADDENDA FOR THE PONTIFEX NOVEL1

Dawson 2 write a letter to Ernest as per one o' Joe McCormick's 2 me.

Ernest says

creator in e days o' hs youth &c." But no

touch &c.

"if a man has remembered his

one ever knew better than Shakespeare that one

Have you sd that Theob. and X'na loved Ernest "too wisely but not well"?

Ernest to know nothing but half pennies.

"May I have the baby when it is worn out." We unfold our days as one who plays patience.

There are people who will shake their wills at those nearest to them up to the last moment of their lives-no matter how old

1 At the time Butler wrote these addenda he had adopted on trial a method of abbreviation here preserved, e.g. 2 for two; o' for of; v for very.

their children. It is all v. well to say that it is a person's own fault if he allows this &c. He often cannot help it.

If it includes ye bishop, and such men we wl say as Prof. Huxley and Tyndal-let it include ye fortune teller too.

That God is a respecter of money, whether he respects persons or no and he seldom goes behind ye money. See remarks in C.P. bk. pp. 822, 823.1

If a man sins agst money it is ye sin agst ye H.G.

Ye rarer virtues 2 be treated as botanists treat rare plants and exterminated.

Give Theobald an epitaph.

Have you got "how hardly shall they that have riches &c." ? Ernest to say of Charlotte "She is an idyllic cat" after reading her letter.

Bishop Ellicott on ye furtive progress o' high churchism—see Times Jan. 17 1885 (for note to ye episode re this in the deathbed o' Xtina chapters).

Charlotte to make Mrs. Henty's speech C.P. bk. 228.

Let us settle about ye facts first and fight &c. 744 &c.

If manners make ye man much more do they make the woman 818.

That we shall all one day lose our money is as certain as that we shall all one day die. 822, 823 & 824.

Amy's dogs carrying a bit of ham in their mouths.

"Happily they are rotten at ye core."

Xtina's kitten might have grown into a formidable cat if Theobald hd not killed it when he did.

For ye same scene "He reflected that he and Christina were united it must be for years and it might be for ever." My father's Woodsias.

Boss-her backbone curdled and her heart jumped out of its socket.

The natural child.

"He is Mr. B's child not mine."

"Its a shilling off ye rent."

What chance wd St. Paul's Epistles or ye gospel o' St. John have o' being admitted into a Xtian journal.

See extract from Bishop Ellicott's charge C.P. bk. 801 or

• rather Times Jan. 17. 1885.

Xt. is indeed abt our bed and abt our path &c.

624.

Bishop Butler worsted in an encounter with ye evil one when he published ye analogy 630.

Charlotte put herself on ye family pedestal, or ws put there by Xtina and all were to bow ye knee before her.

1 C.P. bk. = Commonplace Book, i.e. the Note-Books.