Thanks for your complimentary mention of my notice of Darwin. I have since sent you another brochure, an exhortation to my botanical compatriots to have more consideration for my time, considering how little is left, and what a deal of use I have for it. I can hope only to palliate the evil a little. Your life has been a most enviable one, in being able so to arrange and control your time, and with your indomitable industry, perseverance, and judgment, you have turned your opportunities to full account, winning no end of gratitude and admiration. Now, do take the relaxation and repose which you have so completely earned; and take, as you may, great satisfaction and pride in all you have accomplished. At least your many friends will do so.... I did hope to have got to the end of the Compositæ with the end of 1882; but I shall hardly do more than finish the Helenioideæ. As I go on, I study all Mexican border things, at least these of our North American collectors. My health is excellent; so I may fairly hope to get the North American Compositæ off my hands and in print, barring accidents, and I shall be careful of my bones, and other contingencies.... TO J. D. HOOKER. May 1, 1883. ... I have not read Carlyle’s Life, by Froude, but many articles, in which of course the points are mostly given. All seem to agree that Froude has blackened the memory of Carlyle irrecoverably, or rather with rude hand wiped off the whitewash which covered the blackness. He was a rude, unkempt soul. From the extracts I have seen, I fancy that Mrs. Carlyle’s letters beat Carlyle’s all out for raciness and pith. I am content with the Romane correspondence as R. leaves it, and pleased with Romane’s tone, which I will try to tell him. I think his first reply was a “beating of the air.” And for that reason I returned to the charge. His second is to the purpose. And he seems to feel that mine was to the purpose also. ... As to dear Bentham, his life is the very ideal of a naturalist’s life, and I have always regarded it one of the happiest possible and one of the most successful.... His administration of the Linnæan, his series of addresses, etc., will be looked back to as an oasis in the desert. Our spring is late; the winter, or rather the drought of the previous autumn, has been deadly on perennials, herbs and shrubs.... TO R. W. CHURCH. May 22, 1883.