Sedgwick) that "Vestiges" considers all land-animals and plants to have
passed from marine forms; so Chambers is quite in accordance. Did you hear
Forbes, when here, giving the rather curious evidence (from a similarity in
error) that Chambers must be the author of the "Vestiges": your case
strikes me as some confirmation. I have written an unreasonably long and
dull letter, so farewell. (16/4. "Explanations: A Sequel to the Vestiges
of the Natural History of Creation" was published in 1845, after the
appearance of the fourth edition of the "Vestiges," by way of reply to the
criticisms on the original book. The "K. cabbage" referred to at the
beginning of the paragraph is Pringlea antiscorbutica," the "Kerguelen
Cabbage" described by Sir J.D. Hooker in his "Flora Antarctica." What
Chambers wrote on this subject we have not discovered. The mention of
Sedgwick is a reference to his severe review of the "Vestiges" in the
"Edinburgh Review," 1845, volume 82, page 1. Darwin described it as
savouring "of the dogmatism of the pulpit" ("Life and Letters," I., page
344). Mr. Ireland's edition of the "Vestiges" (1844), in which Robert
Chambers was first authentically announced as the author, contains (page
xxix) an extract from a letter written by Chambers in 1860, in which the
following passage occurs, "The April number of the 'Edinburgh Review"'
(1860) makes all but a direct amende for the abuse it poured upon my work a
number of years ago." This is the well-known review by Owen, to which
references occur in the "Life and Letters," II., page 300. The amende to
the "Vestiges" is not so full as the author felt it to be; but it was
clearly in place in a paper intended to belittle the "Origin"; it also gave
the reviewer (page 511) an opportunity for a hit at Sedgwick and his 1845
review.)


LETTER 17. TO L. BLOMEFIELD [JENYNS].
Down. February 14th [1845].