The Life and Letters-1 [4]
have misrepresented Erasmus Darwin's character. (Ibid., pages 77, 79, etc.) It is, however, extremely probable that the faults which they exaggerate were to some extent characteristic of the man; and this leads me to think that Erasmus had a certain acerbity or severity of temper which did not exist in his grandson.
The sons of Erasmus Darwin inherited in some degree his intellectual tastes, for Charles Darwin writes of them as follows:
"His eldest son, Charles (born September 3, 1758), was a young man of extraordinary promise, but died (May 15, 1778) before he was twenty-one years old, from the effects of a wound received whilst dissecting the brain of a child. He inherited from his father a strong taste for various branches of science, for writing verses, and for mechanics...He also inherited stammering. With the hope of curing him, his father sent him to France, when about eight years old (1766-'67), with a private tutor, thinking that if he was not allowed to speak English for a time, the habit of stammering might be lost; and it is a curious fact, that in after years, when speaking French, he never stammered. At a very early age he collected specimens of all kinds. When sixteen years old he was sent for a year to [Christ Church] Oxford, but he did not like the place, and thought (in the words of his father) that the 'vigour of his mind languished in the pursuit of classical elegance like Hercules at the distaff, and sighed to be removed to the robuster exercise of the medical school of Edinburgh.' He stayed three years at Edinburgh, working hard at his medical studies, and attending 'with diligence all the sick poor of the parish of Waterleith, and supplying them with the necessary medicines.' The Aesculapian Society awarded him its first gold medal for an experimental inquiry on pus and mucus. Notices of him appeared in various journals; and all the writers agree about his uncommon energy and abilities. He seems like his father to have excited the warm affection of his friends. Professor Andrew Duncan... spoke...about him with the warmest affection forty-seven years after his death when I was a young medical student at Edinburgh...
"About the character of his second son, Erasmus (born 1759), I have little to say, for though he wrote poetry, he seems to have had none of the other tastes of his father. He had, however, his own peculiar tastes, viz., genealogy, the collecting of coins, and statistics. When a boy he counted all the houses in the city of Lichfield, and found out the number of inhabitants in as many as he could; he thus made a census, and when a real one was first made, his estimate was found to be nearly accurate. His disposition was quiet and retiring. My father had a very high opinion of his abilities, and this was probably just, for he would not otherwise have been invited to travel with, and pay long visits to, men so distinguished in different ways as Boulton the engineer, and Day the moralist and novelist." His death by suicide, in 1799, seems to have taken place in a state of incipient insanity.
Robert Waring, the father of Charles Darwin, was born May 30, 1766, and entered the medical profession like his father. He studied for a few months at Leyden, and took his M.D. (I owe this information to the kindness of Professor Rauwenhoff, Director of the Archives at Leyden. He quotes from the catalogue of doctors that "Robertus Waring Darwin, Anglo- britannus," defended (February 26, 1785) in the Senate a Dissertation on the coloured images seen after looking at a bright object, and "Medicinae Doctor creatus est a clar. Paradijs." The archives of Leyden University are so complete that Professor Rauwenhoff is able to tell me that my grandfather lived together with a certain "Petrus Crompton, Anglus," in lodgings in the Apothekersdijk. Dr. Darwin's Leyden dissertation was published in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' and my father used to say that the work was in fact due to Erasmus Darwin.--F.D.) at that University on February 26, 1785. "His father" (Erasmus) "brought ('Life
The sons of Erasmus Darwin inherited in some degree his intellectual tastes, for Charles Darwin writes of them as follows:
"His eldest son, Charles (born September 3, 1758), was a young man of extraordinary promise, but died (May 15, 1778) before he was twenty-one years old, from the effects of a wound received whilst dissecting the brain of a child. He inherited from his father a strong taste for various branches of science, for writing verses, and for mechanics...He also inherited stammering. With the hope of curing him, his father sent him to France, when about eight years old (1766-'67), with a private tutor, thinking that if he was not allowed to speak English for a time, the habit of stammering might be lost; and it is a curious fact, that in after years, when speaking French, he never stammered. At a very early age he collected specimens of all kinds. When sixteen years old he was sent for a year to [Christ Church] Oxford, but he did not like the place, and thought (in the words of his father) that the 'vigour of his mind languished in the pursuit of classical elegance like Hercules at the distaff, and sighed to be removed to the robuster exercise of the medical school of Edinburgh.' He stayed three years at Edinburgh, working hard at his medical studies, and attending 'with diligence all the sick poor of the parish of Waterleith, and supplying them with the necessary medicines.' The Aesculapian Society awarded him its first gold medal for an experimental inquiry on pus and mucus. Notices of him appeared in various journals; and all the writers agree about his uncommon energy and abilities. He seems like his father to have excited the warm affection of his friends. Professor Andrew Duncan... spoke...about him with the warmest affection forty-seven years after his death when I was a young medical student at Edinburgh...
"About the character of his second son, Erasmus (born 1759), I have little to say, for though he wrote poetry, he seems to have had none of the other tastes of his father. He had, however, his own peculiar tastes, viz., genealogy, the collecting of coins, and statistics. When a boy he counted all the houses in the city of Lichfield, and found out the number of inhabitants in as many as he could; he thus made a census, and when a real one was first made, his estimate was found to be nearly accurate. His disposition was quiet and retiring. My father had a very high opinion of his abilities, and this was probably just, for he would not otherwise have been invited to travel with, and pay long visits to, men so distinguished in different ways as Boulton the engineer, and Day the moralist and novelist." His death by suicide, in 1799, seems to have taken place in a state of incipient insanity.
Robert Waring, the father of Charles Darwin, was born May 30, 1766, and entered the medical profession like his father. He studied for a few months at Leyden, and took his M.D. (I owe this information to the kindness of Professor Rauwenhoff, Director of the Archives at Leyden. He quotes from the catalogue of doctors that "Robertus Waring Darwin, Anglo- britannus," defended (February 26, 1785) in the Senate a Dissertation on the coloured images seen after looking at a bright object, and "Medicinae Doctor creatus est a clar. Paradijs." The archives of Leyden University are so complete that Professor Rauwenhoff is able to tell me that my grandfather lived together with a certain "Petrus Crompton, Anglus," in lodgings in the Apothekersdijk. Dr. Darwin's Leyden dissertation was published in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' and my father used to say that the work was in fact due to Erasmus Darwin.--F.D.) at that University on February 26, 1785. "His father" (Erasmus) "brought ('Life