And again, December 18:--

I have read Numbers 4 and 5. They are simply perfect. They ought to be
largely advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw
down Number 4 with this reflection, "What is the good of my writing a
thundering big book, when everything is in this green little book so
despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is good and bad I may
as well shut up shop altogether.

These lectures met with an annoying amount of success. They were not
cast into permanent form, for he grudged the time necessary to prepare
them for the press. However, he gave a Mr. Hardwicke permission to take
them down in shorthand as delivered for the use of the audience. But no
sooner were they printed, than they had a large sale. Writing to Sir
J.D. Hooker early in the following month, he says:]

I fully meant to have sent you all the successive lectures as they came
out, and I forward a set with all manner of apologies for my
delinquency. I am such a 'umble-minded party that I never imagined the
lectures as delivered would be worth bringing out at all, and I knew I
had no time to work them out. Now, I lament I did not publish them
myself and turn an honest penny by them as I suspect Hardwicke is doing.
He is advertising them everywhere, confound him.

I wish when you have read them you would tell me whether you think it
would be worthwhile for me to re-edit, enlarge, and illustrate them by
and by.

[And on January 28 Sir Charles Lyell writes to him:--