Why people can’t write a plain legible hand I can’t imagine. [(NB.—­This sentence is written purposely in a most illegible hand.)

And on another occasion he adds a postcript to say,] “You write worse than ever.  So do I.”

[However, the article got finished in course of time:—­]

August 5.

I have seen and done with all “Amphibia” but the last sheet, and that only waits revise.  Considering it was to be done in May, I think I am pretty punctual.

[The next year, immediately before taking Sir Wyville Thomson’s lectures at Edinburgh, he writes about another article which he had in hand:—­]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., March 16, 1875.

My dear Baynes,

I am working against time to get a lot of things done—­amongst others biology—­before I go north.  I have written a large part of said article, and it would facilitate my operation immensely if what is done were set up and I had two or three proofs, one for Dyer, who is to do part of the article.

Now, if I send the manuscript to North Bridge will you swear by your gods (0—­1—­3—­1 or any greater number as the case may be) that I shall have a proof swiftly and not be kept waiting for weeks till the whole thing has got cold, and I am at something else a hundred miles away from Biology?

If not I will keep the manuscript till it is all done, and you know what that means.

Ever yours very truly,

T.H.  Huxley.

Cragside, Morpeth, August 12, 1875.

My dear Baynes,

The remainder of the proof of “Biology” is posted to-day—­“Praise de
Lor’.”

I have a dim recollection of having been led by your soft and insinuating ways to say that I would think (only think) about some other article.  What the deuce was it?

I have told the Royal Society people to send you a list of Fellows, addressed to Black’s.

We have had here what may be called bad weather for England, but it has been far better than the best Edinburgh weather known to my experience.

All my friends are out committing grouse-murder.  As a vivisection Commissioner I did not think I could properly accompany them.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

Cragside, Morpeth, August 24, 1875.

My dear Baynes,

I think —­ is like enough to do the “Coelenterata” well if you can make sure of his doing it at all.  He is a man of really great knowledge of the literature of Zoology, and if it had not been for the accident of being a procrastinating impracticable ass, he could have been a distinguished man.  But he is a sort of Balaam-Centaur with the asinine stronger than the prophetic moiety.

I should be disposed to try him, nevertheless.

I don’t think I have had final revise of Biology yet.

I do not know that “Coelenterata” is Lankester’s speciality.  However, he is sure to do it well if he takes it up.