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ART. III.-Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., Author of Principles of Geology,' &c. Edited by his Sisterin-Law, Mrs. Lyell. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1881.

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THE life of a man of science can rarely or never present the same stirring interest or variety, as that of a man engaged in an active profession or who has taken a prominent part in public life. His life is to be found in his works, and his biography, if it is to be much more than a catalogue raisonné of these, must depend upon assuming something of an autobiographical interest from being based upon the journals or letters of its subject. In this respect Mrs. Lyell has been fortunate in finding ample materials ready to her hand. Sir Charles Lyell maintained through life an extensive correspondence, which was not confined to scientific subjects, but extended over a wide range of topics, while he possessed in no ordinary degree the gift of a fluent and agreeable letter-writer. On several occasions also he kept for a time a regular journal, especially during some of his many tours on the continent of Europe, in which he recorded his observations on men and things, as well as on geological facts. All these journals, as well as those of his letters that are not of a purely scientific character, are marked by a racy spirit and liveliness of observation, ever ready to seize on whatever was of real interest, combined with a sense of humour not often to be found in his countrymen. The great value of Mrs. Lyell's biography must of course consist in the light it throws upon the career of her brother-in-law as a man of science, but the nonscientific reader also will find in it much to interest and amuse him; and those whose memory goes back to the elder generation to which Lyell himself belonged will meet with many reminiscences of the past, recalled in a lively and agreeable manner.

Sir Charles Lyell's position as a geologist has long been securely established. In the words of one who was very competent to judge, written immediately after his death For upwards of half a century he exercised a most important influence on the progress of geological science, and for the last twenty-five years of his life he was the most prominent geologist in the world, equally eminent for the extent of his labours and the breadth of his philosophical views.' He may be considered as holding much the same place in the history of geology that Charles Darwin has more recently assumed in that of biology, as the acknowledged leader of the science, who has marked out for the future the lines from which it is never likely to deviate, and on which alone true progress can be made. In neither case were their views strictly original. The doctrine of the trans

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mutation of species had been put forward by Lamarck, many years before it was taken up by Darwin: and the theory that the operation of such causes as we now witness in action would suffice, if only time enough were allowed, to account for all geological changes, had been first advanced by Hutton before the close of the last century, and supported with much ability by Playfair a few years later.* But the contrary opinion generally prevailed both in this country and on the Continent, until the subject was taken up by Lyell, who, with rare sagacity and great eloquence, with a wealth of illustration and most powerful reasoning,' † established the truth of the long-neglected theory in a position that can hardly be shaken.

The only danger is that the younger generations of geologists, who have been trained up to regard Lyell's views as the orthodox and established faith, may be apt to forget how long and hard a struggle it cost to procure their recognition, and how much energy and perseverance were required before their author, while still a young man, could break through the formidable array of authorities opposed to him, which comprised at first all the leading geologists of Europe. It is here that Mrs. Lyell's book comes in most opportunely, and enables those who have no personal recollections of the earlier days of geology to realize, to a degree that would not otherwise be possible, the struggles and difficulties which none but those who remember them can fully appreciate.

Charles Lyell was born on the 14th of November, 1797, at Kinnordy, in Forfarshire, an estate which had been for some time in his family. His father, who bore the same name, was not only a man of cultivation and refinement far beyond what was usually to be found in a Scotch laird of moderate fortune, but he had devoted himself to both literary and scientific pursuits with energy and success. In early life he had principally directed his attention to botany, especially to the more obscure portions of the study relating to the cryptogamous plants, which he pursued with such success as to render his name familiar to Humboldt and other savans, whom his son subsequently met at Paris. At one time he appears to have occupied himself almost as zealously with entomology; but this was but a short-lived taste. During the latter part of his life he was engaged principally in studies of a very different character, having been led to take so great an interest in Dante, that he not only devoted a large portion of his time to the study of the

Hutton's Theory of the Earth' was published in 1795: Playfair's 'Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory' in 1802.

Sir John Lubbock, Address to the British Association,' Sept. 1881.

Vol. 153.-No. 305.

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great Florentine poet, but published several works upon the subject, including translations of the minor poems contained in the Vita Nuova' and the Convito,' which are in general but little familiar to the English reader. The influence, which his highly cultivated mind, and enlarged interest in a variety of subjects, exercised over his son in early life, is clearly to be seen in the letters addressed by the young man to his father, which form a large portion of the first volume.

In common with many other men of eminence, whose lives have been of late years given to the public, the account of his earliest days is supplied by a fragment of an autobiography, which was written for the information of his wife, after he was first engaged to her. It does not, however, extend even to the end of his school-days, and though these early reminiscences are related with spirit and humour, the only real point of interest they contain is the record of his early devotion to natural history. Entomology was in the first instance the special object of his attention, and though he himself owns, as might have been expected, that at this period mere acquisitiveness-the desire of forming a collection and adding to the number of his specimens had more influence than any love of scientific knowledge, it is evident that this pursuit, ridiculed as it naturally was by his schoolfellows, but encouraged and kept alive by his father and other relations during the holidays, contributed to nourish in him that turn for scientific observation which afterwards found so much wider a field for its exercise. A more questionable form of collection-in which, however, he had the full sympathy of his schoolfellows-was that of birds' eggs, including those of pheasants and partridges from the adjoining manors, which frequently afforded them materials for a substantial breakfast: their enjoyment of the unusual treat being greatly heightened by a vague notion that, if detected, they were liable to be transported to Botany Bay for this kind of poaching'!-Vol. i. p. 31.

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Though he was born in Scotland, Lyell's education was entirely English. He was yet an infant when his father hired a place called Bartley Lodge, in the New Forest, where he continued to reside for twenty-eight years. The boy's earliest associations were thus connected with the beautiful scenery of that neighbourhood, and the first school to which he was sent, at a very early age, was at Ringwood, a few miles from his home. From thence he was transferred to a school at Salisbury, and thence again, when about twelve years old, to one at Midhurst, where he appears to have imbibed about as much Latin and Greek as boys usually carry away from a public school.

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At the age of seventeen he was entered at Exeter College, Oxford, and went through the regular university course; but he does not appear to have applied himself with much zeal to the pursuits of the place, though he ultimately obtained a Second Class in Classics. Those who knew him only in after life will be more surprised to learn that he was a candidate, though an unsuccessful one, for the prize for English poetry.

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But if his residence at Oxford was not remarkable for his proficiency in the studies of the University, in another respect it undoubtedly influenced his whole subsequent career. For it was there that he first directed his attention to geology, having attended a course of Dr. Buckland's lectures, who was at that time at the height of his popularity. According to Mrs. Lyell, it was Bakewell's Geology-at that time a well-known popular introduction to the subject, which he found in his father's library -that first excited his interest in what was to him a wholly new science, and led him to seek the opportunity of pursuing its study under the guidance of Dr. Buckland, whose animated and vigorous mode of treating his subject was well calculated to seize on the imagination of a youth like Charles Lyell.

From this moment he became a geologist, and though, of course, he could not devote himself wholly to his favourite pursuit, we find him, while still at Oxford, taking the opportunity of a visit to Mr. Dawson Turner at Yarmouth, to investigate the mode of formation of that singular port and the estuary of the Yare, and arriving at conclusions undoubtedly correct, though opposed to the obvious inference from present appearances, and combatted as erroneous by his intelligent and highly cultivated host. In a short tour with his father, in the same year, we find him carefully noting all the geological peculiarities he met with on his way; while an excursion with some friends to Staffa and Iona gave him the opportunity of seeing some of the most interesting objects, in a geological point of view, to be met with in the British Islands. The next year (1818) he travelled with his father and other members of his family through France, Switzerland, and Italy, and the extracts given from his journal of this tour are characterized by that freshness of impression and variety of observation which he retained through life, and for which such a journey afforded ample scope in those days, when people really travelled in the countries that they visited, instead of being whirled at railway speed from one end to another, without seeing or learning anything.

After taking his degree at Oxford in 1819, the young student was entered at Lincoln's Inn, and for a time devoted himself to the study of the law in a special pleader's office. But the weak

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ness of his eyes, a disadvantage with which he had to struggle throughout his life, soon compelled him to desist from the pursuit of this laborious profession: and though, after a period of rest, he was able to resume his legal studies, so as to be called to the bar in 1825, and even went the Western Circuit for two years, his increasing devotion to geology made it abundantly manifest that his vocation was for science, and not for the law. As early as 1819 he had become a member of the Geological Society, then a body of very limited extent, but comprising a number of men full of zeal, talents, and energy: in 1823 he became secretary of that society, and in the same year contributed his first paper to their transactions. This, as well as one published by him in 1825 in Brewster's Edinburgh Journal of Science' related to the geological formation of his native county of Forfarshire: and throughout his letters it is interesting to observe how continually he refers to the geological phenomena in the immediate vicinity of his home, which he had thoroughly investigated at this early period. Prominent among these were the deposits of shell marl, found in certain small lakes in Forfarshire, which afforded him a clue to the formation of the far more extensive freshwater deposits that in some countries occupy a large portion of the surface. It was fortunate for him also that during this period of his life his father continued to reside principally at the house which he had taken in the New Forest, a position which brought him into the immediate proximity of the interesting tertiary deposits of the coast of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; and thus drew his attention to that branch of geology on which, above all others, he has left his mark.

In 1826 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the following year he contributed to this journal an article on Scrope's 'Geology of Central France,'* which attracted general attention, and afforded the first evidence of the remarkable power he possessed of giving a popular form to his scientific views; a power which undoubtedly contributed in no small. degree to the influence exercised by his writings over the general public as well as the scientific world.

Meantime his name was beginning to become generally known as that of a rising young geologist; and when he visited Paris in 1823, he was received with open arms by Humboldt, Cuvier, Brongniart, and other savans, and found himself at once admitted to all the scientific society of the French capital. But while he profited to the utmost by the opportunities thus afforded him,

* Quarterly Review,' vol. xxxvi.

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