NOTES

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

[Footnote 1:  Autobiography:  Huxley’s account of this sketch, written in 1889, is as follows:  “A man who is bringing out a series of portraits of celebrities, with a sketch of their career attached, has bothered me out of my life for something to go with my portrait, and to escape the abominable bad taste of some of the notices, I have done that.”]

[Footnote 2:  pre-Boswellian epoch:  the time before Boswell.  James Boswell (1740-1795) wrote the famous Life of Samuel Johnson.  Mr. Leslie Stephen declares that this book “became the first specimen of a new literary type.”  “It is a full-length portrait of a man’s domestic life with enough picturesque detail to enable us to see him through the eyes of private friendship. . . .”  A number of biographers since Boswell have imitated his method; and Leslie Stephen believes that “we owe it in some degree to his example that we have such delightful books as Lockhart’s Life of Scott or Mr. Trevelyan’s Life of Macaulay.”]

[Footnote 3:  “Bene qui latuit, bene vixit”:  from Ovid.  He who has kept himself well hidden, has lived well.]

[Footnote 4:  Prince George of Cambridge:  the grandson of King George III, second Duke of Cambridge, and Commander-in-chief of the British Army.]

[Footnote 5:  Mr. Herbert Spencer (1820—­1903):  a celebrated English philosopher and powerful advocate of the doctrine of evolution.  Spencer is regarded as one of the most profound thinkers of modern times.  He was one of Huxley’s closest friends.]

[Footnote 6:  in partibus infidelium:  in the domain of the unbelievers.]

[Footnote 7:  “sweet south upon a bed of violets.”  Cf.  Twelfth Night, Act I, sc.  I, l. 5.

     O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
     That breathes upon a bank of violets,
     Stealing and giving odour.

For the reading “sweet south” instead of “sweet sound,” see Rolfe’s edition of Twelfth Night.]

[Footnote 8:  “Lehrjahre”:  apprenticeship.

Charing Cross School of Medicine:  a school connected with the Charing
Cross Hospital in the Strand, London.]

[Footnote 9:  Nelson:  Horatio Nelson, a celebrated English Admiral born in Norfolk, England, 1758, and died on board the Victory at Trafalgar, 1805.  It was before the battle off Cape Trafalgar that Nelson hoisted his famous signal, “England expects every man will do his duty.”  Cf.  Tennyson’s Ode to the Duke of Wellington, stanza VI, for a famous tribute to Nelson.]

[Footnote 10:  middies:  abbreviated form for midshipmen.]

[Footnote 11:  Suites a Buffon:  sequels to Buffon.  Buffon (1707-1781) was a French naturalist who wrote many volumes on science.]

[Footnote 12:  Linnean Society:  a scientific society formed in 1788 under the auspices of several fellows of the Royal Society.]