frankness of temper and manners. Early in her widowhood she was rallied in a large company upon Dr. Darwin's passion for her, and was asked what she would do with her captive philosopher. He is not very fond of churches, I believe,' said she, and even if he would go there for my sake, I shall scarcely follow him. He is too old for me.' 'Nay, Madam,' was the answer, what are fifteen years on the right side?' She replied, with an arch smile, 'I have had so much of that right side.' "This confession was thought inauspicious for the doctor's hopes, but it did not prove so. The triumph of intellect was complete. Mrs. Pole had taken a strong dislike to Lichfield, and had made it a condition of her marriage that Dr. Darwin should not reside there after he had married her. In 1781, therefore, immediately after his marriage, he removed to Derby, and continued to live there till a fortnight before his death. Here he wrote The Botanic Garden and a great part of the Zoonomia. Those who wish for a detailed analysis of The Botanic Garden can hardly do better than turn to Miss Seward's pages. Opening them at random, I find the following: "The mention of Brindley, the father of commercial canals, has propriety as well as happiness. Similitude for their course to the sinuous track of a serpent, produces a fine picture of a gliding animal of that species, and it is succeeded by these supremely happy lines: 'So with strong arms immortal Brindley leads 1 Memoirs, etc., p. 149. 2 "The mechanism of the pump is next described with curious ingenuity. Common as is the machine, it is not unworthy a place in this splendid composition, as being, after the sinking of wells, the earliest of those inventions, which in situations of exterior aridness gave ready accession to water. This familiar object is illustrated by a picture of Maternal Beauty administering sustenance to her infant." 1 Here we will leave the poetical part of The Botanic Garden. The notes, however, to which are " still," as Dr. Dowson says, " instructive and amusing," and contain matter which, at the time they were written, was for the most part new. Of the Zoonomia there is no occasion to speak here, as a sufficient number of extracts from those parts that concern us as bearing upon evolution will be given presently. On the 18th April 1802, Dr. Darwin had written one page of a very sprightly letter to Mr. Edgeworth, describing the Priory and his purposed alterations there, when the fatal signal was given. He rang the bell and ordered the servant to send Mrs. Darwin to him. She came immediately, with his daughter, Miss Emma Darwin. They saw him shivering and pale. He desired them to send to Derby for his surgeon, Mr. Hadley. They did so, but all was over before he could arrive. 'Alas! I dare "It was reported at Lichfield that, perceiving himself growing rapidly worse, he said to Mrs. Darwin, My dear, you must bleed me instantly.' not, lest'Emma, will you? There is no time to be lost.' 'Yes, my dear father, if you will direct me.' At that moment he sank into his chair and Dr. Dowson gives the letter to Mr. Edgeworth, which is as follows: 66 DEAR EDGEWORTH, I am glad to find that you still amuse yourself with mechanism, in spite of the troubles of Ireland. The use of turning aside or downwards the claw of a table, I don't see; as it must then be reared against a wall, for it will not stand alone. If the use be for carriage, the feet may shut up, like the usual brass feet of a reflecting telescope. We have all been now removed from Derby about a fortnight, to the Priory, and all of us like our change of situation. We have a pleasant house, a good garden, ponds full of fish, and a pleasing valley, somewhat like Shenstone's-deep, umbrageous, and with a talkative Stream running down it. Our house is near the top of the valley, well screened by hills from the east and north, and open to the south, where at four miles distance we see Derby tower. Four or more strong springs rise near the house, and have formed the valley which, like that of Petrarch, may be called Val Chiusa, as it begins, or is shut at the situation of the house. I hope you like the description, and hope farther that yourself and any part of your family will sometimes do us the pleasure of a visit. Pray tell the authoress [Miss Maria Edgeworth] that the water-nymphs of our valley will be happy to assist her next novel. My bookseller, Mr. Johnson, will not begin to print the Temple of Nature till the price of paper is fixed by Parliament. I suppose the present duty is paid... At these words Dr. Darwin's pen stopped. What followed was written on the opposite side of the paper by another hand. CHAPTER THIRTEEN: PHILOSOPHY OF DR. ERASMUS C DARWIN ONSIDERING THE WIDE REPUTATION enjoyed by Dr. Darwin at the beginning of this century, it is surprising how completely he has been lost sight of. The Botanic Garden was translated into Portuguese in 1803; the Loves of the Plants into French and Italian in 1800 and 1805; while, as I have already said, the Zoonomia had appeared some years earlier in Germany. Paley's Natural Theology is written throughout at the Zoonomia, though he is careful, more suo, never to mention this work by name. Paley's success was probably one of the chief causes of the neglect into which the Buffonian and Darwinian systems fell in this country. Dr. Darwin is as reticent about teleology as Buffon, and presumably for the same reason, but the evidence in favour of design was too obvious; Paley, therefore, with his usual keen-sightedness seized upon this weak point, and had the battle all his own way, for Dr. Darwin died the same year as that in which the Natural Theology appeared. The unfortunate failure to see that evolution involves design and purpose as necessarily and far more intelligibly than the theological view of creation, has retarded our perception of many important facts for three-quarters of a century. However this may be, Dr. Darwin's name has been but little before the public during the controversies of the last thirty years. Mr. Charles Darwin, indeed, in the "historical sketch" which he has prefixed to the later editions of his Origin of Species, says, "It is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his Zoonomia, vol. i, pp. 500-510, published in 1794.' And a few lines lower Mr. Origin of Species, note on p. xiv. 1 Darwin adds, "It is rather a singular instance of the manner in which similar views arise at about the same time, that Goethe in Germany, and Geoffroy St. Hilaire (as we shall immediately see) in France, came to the same conclusion on the Origin of Species in the years 1794-1796." Acquaintance with Buffon's work will explain much of the singularity, while those who have any knowledge of the writings of Dr. Darwin and Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire will be aware that neither would admit the other as "coming to the same conclusion," or even nearly so, as himself. Dr. Darwin goes beyond his successor, Lamarck, while Etienne Geoffroy does not even go so far as Dr. Darwin's predecessor, Buffon, had thought fit to let himself be known as going. I have found no other reference to Dr. Darwin in the Origin of Species, except the two just given from the same note. In the first edition I find no mention of him. The chief fault to be found with Dr. Darwin's treatise on evolution is that there is not enough of it; what there is, so far from being "erroneous," is admirable. But so great a subject should have had a book to itself, and not a mere fraction of a book. If his opponents, not venturing to dispute with him, passed over one book in silence, he should have followed it up with another, and another, and another, year by year, as Buffon and Lamarck did; it is only thus that men can expect to succeed against vested interests. Dr. Darwin could speak with a freedom that was denied to Buffon. He took Buffon at his word as well as he could, and carried out his principles to what he conceived to be their logical conclusion. This was doubtless what Buffon had desired and reckoned on, but, as I have said already, I question how far Dr. Darwin understood Buffon's humour; he does not present any of the |