tained "the _smallest_ doubt of the expediency
or propriety of telling the public the part" which he took on that
historic occasion!

He was also the chief guest at the 1909 celebration at Cambridge of the
centenary of Darwin's birth. I recollect him wandering about at the
evening reception, quite unconsciously the object of all eyes.
Unfortunately, Hooker was not present at the banquet, where, as Mr L.
Huxley says, "Mr Balfour's historic speech was only eclipsed by the sense
of personal charm in Mr W. E. Darwin's reminiscences of his father" (ii.,
p. 467).

It is delightful to find Hooker in 1911 vigorously corresponding with Dr
Bruce, a "brother Antarctic." He writes to Bruce, 20th February 1911, "I
return herewith the proof-sheets, which I have perused with extraordinary
interest and an amount of instruction and information that I never
expected to receive at my age" (_Life_, ii., p. 478). It is touching
that in extreme old age the first work that occupied his youth should
still find so clear an echo in his vigorous old age.

Mr Huxley records (ii., p. 480) that though Sir Joseph "kept at work till
but a little before the end," his physical strength began to fail in the
late summer; but his mental powers were undimmed. He died in his sleep
on 10th December 1911, and was buried (as he had desired) near his
father's grave at Kew.

A GREAT HOSPITAL {137a}

Dr Moore writes in his preface: "The History is a gift from me to St
Bartholomew's, and I hope that the labour of investigating historical
events, of meditating upon them, and of finally writing the book in such
hours as my profession allowed during more than thirty years, may be
taken as a proof of the gratitude I feel to the noble hospital with which
my whole professional life has been connected."

The book seems to me eminently worthy of its subject and of its learned
author. {137b} As a record of the 800 years during which the Hospital
has existed it naturally contains an enormous mass of detail, and this
means that the book is physically very big. The first volume is of 614
quarto pages, and the second of 992 pages. The index contains at least
20,000 entries.

The Hospital and the Priory of St Bartholomew were the first buildings
erected on the open space of Smithfield. The foundation took place in
1123, and Rahere, the founder, was the first Prior. He is said to have
been of lowly race, and to have made himself popular in the houses of