From the scientific point of view, the speech was of small value. It was evident from his mode of handling the subject that he had been "crammed up to the throat," and knew nothing at first hand; he used no argument beyond those to be found in his "Quarterly" article, which appeared a few days later, and is now admitted to have been inspired by Owen. "He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley savagely; but," confesses one of his strongest opponents, "all in such dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well turned periods, that I who had been inclined to blame the President for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart." ("Life of Darwin" l.c.) The Bishop spoke thus "for full half an hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness and unfairness." "In a light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey?" ("Reminiscences of a Grandmother," "Macmillan's Magazine," October 1898. Professor Farrar thinks this version of what the Bishop said is slightly inaccurate. His impression is that the words actually used seemed at the moment flippant and unscientific rather than insolent, vulgar, or personal. The Bishop, he writes, "had been talking of the perpetuity of species of Birds; and then, denying a fortiori the derivation of the species Man from Ape, he rhetorically invoked the aid of FEELING, and said, 'If any one were to be willing to trace his descent through an ape as his GRANDFATHER, would he be willing to trace his descent similarly on the side of his GRANDMOTHER?' His false humour was an attempt to arouse the antipathy about degrading WOMAN to the quadrumana. Your father's reply showed there was vulgarity as well as folly in the Bishop's words; and the impression distinctly was, that the Bishop's party, as they left the room, felt abashed, and recognised the Bishop had forgotten to behave like a perfect gentleman.")