I was appointed yesterday to a post of 200 pounds sterling a year.  It has all come about in the strangest way.  I told you how my friend Forbes had been suddenly called away to Edinburgh, and that I had suddenly taken his duties—­sharp work it has been I can tell you these summer months, but it is over and done satisfactorily.  Forbes got 500 pounds sterling a year, 200 pounds sterling for a double lectureship, 300 pounds sterling for another office.  I took one of the lectureships, which would have given me 100 pounds sterling a year only, and another man was to have the second lectureship and the other office in question.  It was so completely settled a week ago that I had written to the President of the Board of Trade who makes the appointment, accepting mine, and the other man had done the same.  Happily for me, however, my new colleague was suddenly afflicted with a sort of moral colic, an absurd idea that he could not perform the duties of his office, and resigned it.  The result is that a new man has been appointed to the office he left vacant, while the lectureship was offered to me.  Of course I took it, and so in the course of the week I have seen my paid income doubled...So after a short interval I have become a Government officer again, but in rather a different position I flatter myself.  I am chief of my own department, and my position is considered a very good one—­as good as anything of its kind in London.

[Furthermore, on August 11 he was “entrusted with the Coast Survey investigations under the Geological Survey, and remunerated by fee until March 31, 1855, when he was ranked as Naturalist on the Survey with an additional salary of 200 pounds sterling, afterwards increased to 400 pounds sterling, rising to 600 pounds sterling per annum,” as the official statement has it.

Then in quick succession he was offered in August a lectureship on Comparative Anatomy at St. Thomas’ Hospital for the following May and June, and in September he was asked to lecture in November and March for the Science and Art Department at Marlborough House.

Now therefore, with the Heathorns coming to England, his plans and theirs exactly fitted, and he proposed to get married as soon as they came over, early in the following summer.

A letter of this year deserves quoting as illustrating the directness of Huxley’s dealings with his friends, and his hatred of doing anything unknown to them which might be misreported to them or misconstrued without explanation.  As a member of the Royal Society Council, it was his duty to vote upon the persons to whom the yearly medals of the Society should be awarded.  For the Royal Medal first Hooker was named, and received his hearty support; then Forbes, in opposition to Hooker, in his eyes equally deserving of recognition, and almost more closely bound to him by ties of friendship, so that whatever action he took, might be ascribed to motives which should have no part in such a selection.  The course actually taken by him he explained at length in letters to both Forbes and Hooker.]