ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH, S.E., 1865, July 24.
MY LORD,
With many thanks I have to acknowledge your kind recollection of me in sending as a presentation copy the work on Joshua, Judges, and especially on the divided authorship of Genesis; a work whose investigations, founded in great measure on severe and extensive verbal criticism, will apparently bear comparison with your Lordship's most remarkable examination of Deuteronomy. I should however not do justice to my own appreciation if I did not remark that there are other points considered which have long been matters of interest to me.
On several matters, some of them important, my present conclusions do not absolutely agree with your Lordship's. But I am not the less grateful for the amount of erudition and thought carefully directed to definite points, and above all for the noble example of unwearied research and freedom in stating its consequences, in reference to subjects which scarcely ever occupy the attention of the clergy in our country.
I am, My Lord,
Yours very faithfully,
G.B. AIRY.
The Lord Bishop of Natal.
* * * * *
Here also is a letter on the same subject, written to Professor
Selwyn, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge:—
ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH,
LONDON, S.E.,
1866, May 5.