SIR CHARLES BUNBURY.* WE cannot do better than introduce these
two extremely interesting and readable volumes by a quotation from a letter which Sir Joseph Hooker addressed to Mrs. Lyell, their editress :—" I am indeed glad to know that you intend to publish ' The Life, Letters, and Journals' of my old friend Sir Charles Banbury. It was a grievous disappointment to his scientific and literary friends that the issue of the privately printed edition by Lady Banbury was limited to his relations. Those Letters and Journals cover sixty- five years of the nineteenth century, when the scientific and literary activities of the nation were at their best, and their author was by birth, education, social position, private means, conversational powers, memory, and geniality of disposition, in the best possible position for taking advantage of such passports to the society of the most gifted men of his time."
Charles James Fox Banbury, who lived from 1809 to 1886, was by birth a Whig and by taste a naturalist. He dined at Holland House in company with Sydney Smith, and break- fasted in St. James's Place with the poet Rogers. He stayed at St. Anne's Hill with Mrs. Fox, " the fittest and most amiable old woman I know "; but he "was secretly disappointed at not feeling more emotion on visiting the favourite abode of Mr. Fox." He stood unsuccessfully for Bury, and, though this was the end of his active political career, he continued to take an interest in politics, and particularly in military affairs. His father had been Under-Secretary of State for War. It is, however, rather to his career as a man of science that we would turn. His early inclination for natural history was encouraged by his mother, who was a woman of singular goodness and intelli- gence. As quite a small boy he began to dry plants and to collect fossils. This taste was never crushed out of him by a public-school. He was educated at home by a tutor, and went to Trinity, Cambridge, where he was a contem- porary of Monckton Mikes. Here he read LiMlley'a Intro- duction to Botany and Lyell's Principles of Geology "the two books made as deep an impression on me as any books I ever read, and gave me entirely new views and ideas of the whole of their respective sciences." On leaving Cambridge be travelled in Brazil and South Africa. His letters and diaries respecting the Cape in 1838 are still politically interesting. It was the age when • The Life of Sir Charles J. F. Banbury. Bart. With an Introductory Note by Sir Joseph Hooker, C.B.. GI.C.S.1. Edited by his Sister-in-Law, Mrs. Henry Lyell. With Portraits and Illuetrations. S vols. London John Murray. 00s. net.]
all Colonies were expected to drop off in process of time. Si; Charles Banbury was never compelled to keep himself 1;3 following any lucrative profession ; and the leisure of his long life spent in London, at Mildenhall in Suffolk, and inconstant travels on the Continent never hung heavy on his hands. His marriage with Miss Frances Horner was as happy and congenial as possible. His time was filled with studies, and his journals contain frequent expressions of thankfulness to God for the pleasure that be derived from life. It is indeed seldom that one is able to examine the records of a happier existence. Although he contributed numerous papers to scientific journals, the only book that he published was one entitled A Residence at the Cape of Good Hope (1848).
Sir Charles Banbury's life covered a period of unequalled interest in the history of natural science, and he was intimate with all the leading men of the time. He was introduced to Darwin in 1837, and records in his journal for 184.5 a talk on scientific matters: "He avowed himself to some extent a believer in the transmutation of species ; though not, he said, exactly according to the doctrine either of Lamarck or of the Vestiges. But admitted that all the leading botanists and zoologists, of this country at least, are on the other side." The reference is to the Vestiges of Creation, the authorship of which was much discussed at the time, "the doctrines in it being commonly supposed to be adverse to religion." Four- teen years later Darwin published his Origin of Species, expounding therein the doctrine of natural selection. These new theories were somewhat slowly accepted by the older generation of scientific men, among which was Sir Charles Banbury. But he lived long enough to see Darwinian ideas generally diffused even in the unscientific world, and the two sciences of geology and biology freed from the trammels of theology. A special taste of his was palaeontology, then in its infancy. The study of fossil plants occupied much of his time. He was a great admirer and a friend of Owen. Many of the most interesting letters in these two volumes are written to Sir Charles Lyell. Nothing, indeed, shows more clearly the rapid progress which modern thought has made than the sensation which was created by that great geologist's Antiquity of Man, and the storm aroused by Darwin's and Huxley's writings.
Sir Charles Banbury's letters are for the most part addressed to his relations ; yet there are few which contain only matters of trivial or private interest. His journals have the rare merit of being written with old-fashioned care and leisure. They do not consist of mere strings of names of persons, places, or books. His descriptions are excellent ; he rarely mentions a person without adding some trait or anecdote that is worth noting ; he keeps a chronicle of the books he reads, with a criticism and a record of the thoughts they suggest. There is a good deal of botany and many Latin names in the journals which may mean little to the unlearned. On the other band, there is plenty to appeal to the intelligent general reader. Whenever he travelled in France, Germany, and Italy he met men of learning and distinction. In 1855 he visited Humboldt in Berlin, and records the great naturalist's talk. "His con- versation is rich, varied, lively and instructive, like his writings; and it is marvellous to see, at his great age, the activity of his mind, his eager interest in all that is going on in science, and his unflagging desire for fresh information." Here, too, he met Ritter, the geographer; Ranke, the historian ; Ewald, the geologist; Peters, the African traveller; and the brothers Grimm. In Paris in 1857 he enjoyed the company of Lamartine, Alfred de Vigny, and Tourguenieff. He was in Italy dosing the disturbances of 1848.
In England his friends, besides those we have already mentioned, were very numerous,—George Bentham, the great botanist ; Charles Kingsley, whose charming and varied con- versation is vividly pictured in the journals. "Indeed, I hardly think I have ever known a man whose conversation was so charming—so rich in matter, so various, so easy and unassuming, so instructive, yet so free from dogmatism and from any tinge of the preaching or lecturing tone, sensibility, humour, wisdom, so happily blended." Another clergyman of a different type, but not less agreeable, also appears in the earlier pages. Sydney Smith declared that the children of Bishop Phillpotts used to end their usual prayers by praying for Earl Grey, explaining that "Papa tells us it is our duty to pray for our greatest enemies !" The anecdote may not be true, but it is highly characteristic of Sydney Smith. Others who appear more or less frequently in the journals are Mrs. Somerville, Miss Fox, Lord Arthur Hervey, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Sir Roderick Murchison, Sir George and Sir
• William Napier ; Mr. Leaky, " the author of the important work 'on Rationalism, a tall, fair, young-looking man, of extremely gentle, modest, quiet, indeed, retiring manners, not talking much"; Sir Bartle Frere; Lord Aberdare; Sir Louis Mallet, "a thoroughly honest, earnest, true-hearted man, generally candid and moderate, always truth-loving and open to con- viction " ; we might continue the list almost indefinitely. Of all the names that occur to us as we turn over the pages, Sir Joseph Hooker is almost the sole survivor.
Here is a story about Mr. and Mrs. Lowe told by Sir Louie Mallet :—
" Mr. Lowe was expatiating on the absurdity of the formula in our marriage service: ' With all my worldly goods I thee endow.' "For instance,' he said, turning to his wife; ' when we married, I did not endow you with all my worldly goods, for I had nothing.' Ali! but consider, my dear' (she replied) 'you had your great talents and learning." Oh !' said he, 'I certainly did not endow you with them !'
No biography is complete which does not contain some "link with the past," and we will therefore end with another extract :—
" Lady Banbury told us that once when she was ten years old she was taken by her aunt Lady Louisa to see an old lady of 110, a Miss Alexander ; and before they came away the old lady took her by the hand and said, 'Now remember, my dear, you will one day be glad to remember that you have yourself seen a person who was at the siege of Derry.' The siege of Derry was in 1689; Lady Bunbury was born in 1783 ; and the old Irish lady, being a hundred years older, was therefore born in 1683, and must have been about six years old at the time of the siege."
We have written enough to show the varied nature and the wide range of these remarkably interesting volumes.
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