a record of which found its way into print and made a stir many years ago.  It grew from seeds given to me by Mr. Pettigrew out of an Amenti vase taken from a mummy pit by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, and very carefully resuscitated by myself in garden-pots filled with well-sifted mould at Albury; it proved to be a new and prolific species of the semi-bearded Talavera kind, and a longest ear of 8-1/2 inches in length (engraved in an agricultural journal) was sent by me to Prince Albert, then a zealous British farmer.

Here I will add a very interesting letter to me on the subject from Faraday, the original being pasted among my autographs.  It will be seen that he excuses having published my letter to him, and refuses to be called Doctor:—­

“Royal Institution, June 11, 1842.

“My dear Sir,—­Your note was a very pleasant event in my day of yesterday, and I thank you heartily for it, and rejoice with you at the success of the crop.  It so happened that yesterday evening was the last of our meetings, and I had to speak in the lecture-room.  The subject was Lithotint:  but I placed the one ear in the library under a glass case, and after my first subject was over read the principal part of your letter—­all that related to the wheat:  and the information was received with great interest by about 700 persons.  Our President, Lord Prudhoe, was in the chair, and greatly desirous of knowing the age of the wheat.  You know he is learned in Egyptian matters, and was anxious about the label or inscription accompanying the corn.  I hope I have not done wrong, but I rather fear your letter will be published, or at least the wheat part, for a gentleman asked me whether he might copy it, and I instantly gave him leave, but found that he was connected with the press, the Literary Gazette.  I hope you will not object since without thought on my part the matter has gone thus far.  The news is so good and valuable that I do not wonder at the desire to have it,—­Ever your obliged servant,

“M.  Faraday.

“M.F.  Tupper, Esq.,
&c. &c. &c.

“P.S.—­I am happy to say that I am plain Mr. Faraday, and if I
have my wish shall keep so.—­M.F.”

An early volume of my so-called “Critica Egotistica” has many letters and printed communications on this subject:  but as not being a recognised agriculturist myself, I did not wish it called by my name,—­so it is only known in the markets (chiefly I have heard in Essex) as “Mummy Wheat.”  Talking of declined honours in nomenclature, I may here mention that a new beetle, found by Vernon Wollaston and urged by him to be named after the utterly “unsharded” me (who had however gratified that distinguished entomologist by my poem on Beetles) was respectfully refused the prefix of my name, as scarcely knowing a lepidopt from a coleopt. Ne sutor ultra crepidam. If honour is to be given, let it be deserved.

CHAPTER XXV.