There was a bustle in the hall, which made Mrs. Darwin get up
and go to the door. Upon her exclaiming that they were bringing in a
dead man, I went to the hall. I saw some persons, directed by one whom I
guessed to be Doctor Darwin, carrying a man who appeared to be
motionless. 'He is not dead,' said Doctor Darwin. 'He is only dead
drunk. I found him,' continued the Doctor, 'nearly suffocated in a
ditch: I had him lifted into my carriage, and brought hither, that we
might take care of him to-night.' Candles came; and what was the
surprise of the Doctor and of Mrs. Darwin, to find that the person whom
he had saved was Mrs. Darwin's brother! who, for the first time in his
life, as I was assured, had been intoxicated in this manner, and who
would undoubtedly have perished had it not been for Doctor Darwin's
humanity. During this scene I had time to survey my new friend, Doctor
Darwin. He was a large man, fat, and rather clumsy; but intelligence and
benevolence were painted in his countenance: he had a considerable
impediment in his speech, a defect which is in general painful to
others; but the Doctor repaid his auditors so well for making them wait
for his wit or his knowledge, that he seldom found them impatient. When
his brother was disposed of, he came to supper, and I thought that he
looked at Mrs. Darwin as if he was somewhat surprised when he heard that
I had passed the whole evening in her company. After she withdrew, he
entered into conversation with me upon the carriage that I had made, and
upon the remarks that fell from some members of the Society to whom I
had shewn it. I satisfied his curiosity; and having told him that my
carriage was in the town, and that he could see it whenever he pleased,
we talked upon mechanical subjects, and afterwards on various branches
of knowledge, which necessarily produced allusions to classical
literature; by these, he discovered that I had received the education of
a gentleman. 'Why! I thought,' said the Doctor, 'that you were a
coach-maker!' 'That was the reason,' said I, 'that you looked surprised at
finding me at supper with Mrs. Darwin. But you see, Doctor, how superior
in discernment ladies are even to the most learned gentlemen: I assure
you that I had not been in the room five minutes before Mrs. Darwin
asked me to tea!'"

These endeavours to improve the construction of carriages were near
costing him dear; nor did he desist till he had been several times
thrown down, and at last broke the pan of the right knee, which
occasioned a slight but incurable lameness. The amiable woman, of whom
Mr. Edgeworth has here spoken, died in 1770. Of the five children whom
she brought him, two were lost in their infancy. Charles, the eldest of
the remaining three, died at Edinburgh, in 1778, of a disease supposed
to be communicated by a corpse which he was dissecting, when one of his
fingers was slightly wounded. He had obtained a gold medal for pointing
out a test by which pus might be distinguished from mucus; and the Essay
in which he had stated his discovery was published by his father after
his death, together with another treatise, which he left incomplete, on
the Retrograde Motions of the Absorbent Vessels of Animal Bodies in some
Diseases. Another of his sons, Erasmus, who was a lawyer, in a temporary
fit of mental derangement put an end to his existence, in 1799. Robert
Waring, a physician, now in high reputation at Shrewsbury, is the only
one of these children who survived him.

A few years before he quitted Lichfield, in consequence of a second
marriage, he attempted to establish a Botanical Society in that city;
but his only associates were the present Sir Brooke Boothby, and a
proctor whose name was Jackson. Of this triumvirate, Miss Seward, who
knew them well, tells us that Jackson admired Sir Brooke Boothby, and
worshipped and aped Dr. Darwin. He became a useful drudge to each in
their joint work, the translation of the Linnaean system of vegetation
into English from the Latin. His illustrious coadjutors exacted of him
fidelity to the sense of their author, and they corrected Jackson's
inelegant English, weeding it of its pompous coarseness. Darwin had
already conceived the design of turning the Linnaean system into a poem,
which, after he had composed it, was long handed about in manuscript;
and, I believe, frequently revised and altered with the most sedulous
care. The stage on which he has introduced his fancied Queen of Botany,
and her attendants from the Rosicrusian world, has the recommendation of
being a real spot of ground within a mile of the place he inhabited. A
few years ago it retained many traces of the diligence he had bestowed
on it, and has probably not yet entirely lost them. Of this work, called
the Botanic Garden, which he retained till he thought there was no
danger of his medical character suffering from his being known as a
poet, he published, in 1789, the second part, containing the Loves of
the Plants, first; believing it to be more level to the apprehension of
ordinary readers. It soon made its way to an almost universal
popularity. With the lovers of poetry, the novelty of the subject, and
the high polish, as it was then considered, of the verse, secured it
many favourers, and the curiosity of the naturalist was not less
gratified by the various information and the fanciful conjectures which
abounded in the notes. The first part was given to the public in three
years after.

In 1795 and 1796, appeared the two volumes of Zoonomia, or Laws of
Organic Life, the produce of long labour and much consideration. What
profit a physician may derive from this book I am unable to determine;
but I fear that the general reader will too often discover in it a
hazardous ingenuity, to which good sense and reason have been
sacrificed. When the writer of these pages, who was then his patient,
ventured to intimate the sensuality of one part of it to its author, he
himself immediately referred to the passage which was likely to have
raised the objection; and, on another occasion, as if to counteract this
prejudice in the mind of one whose confidence he might be desirous of
obtaining, he recommended to him the study of Paley's Moral Philosophy.

In 1781, he married his second wife, the widow of Colonel Pole, of
Radburne, near Derby, with whom he appears to have lived as happily as
he had done with his first. By her persuasion, he was induced to pass
the latter part of his days at Derby. Here his medical practice was not
at all lessened; and he had a second family to provide for out of the
emolument which it brought him. His other publications were a Tract on
Female Education, a slight performance, written for the purpose of
recommending a school kept by some ladies, in whose welfare his relation
to them gave him a warm interest; and a long book in 1800, on the
Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening, which he entitled Phytologia.

On Lady Day, 1802, he took possession of an old house, called the
Priory, which had belonged to his son Erasmus, and was situated at a
short distance from Derby; and on the 17th of the next month, while he
was writing to his friend, Mr. Edgeworth, the following letter, he was
arrested by the sudden approach of death.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Priory, near Derby, April 17, 1802.

  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 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
  home, 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 home 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 Valchiusa, as it
  begins, or is shut at the situation of the house. I hope you like the
  description, and hope farther, that yourself or any part of your
  family will sometime do me the pleasure of a visit.

  Pray tell the authoress 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

       *       *       *       *       *

To this imperfect sentence was added on the opposite side by another
hand;

  Sir,--This family is in the greatest affliction. I am truly grieved to
  inform you of the death of the invaluable Dr. Darwin. Dr. Darwin got
  up apparently in good health; about eight o'clock, he rang the library
  bell. The servant who went, said he appeared fainting. He revived
  again. Mrs. Darwin was immediately called. The Doctor spoke often, but
  soon appeared fainting; and died about one o'clock.

  Our dear Mrs. Darwin and family are inconsolable: their affliction is
  great indeed, there being few such husbands or fathers. He will be
  most deservedly lamented by all who had the honour of being known to
  him.

  I remain, Sir,

  Your obedient humble servant,

  S.M.

  P.S. This letter was begun this morning by Dr. Darwin himself.

The complaint which thus suddenly terminated his life, in his
seventy-first year, was the Angina Pectoris.

The Temple of Nature was printed in the year after his death; but the
public had either read enough of his writings or were occupied with
other things, for little attention was paid to this poetical bequest.
That ingenious burlesque of his manner, the Loves of the Triangles,
probably contributed to loosen the spell by which he had for a while
taken the general ear.

His person is well described by his biographer, Miss Seward, as being
above the middle size, his form athletic, and his limbs too heavy for
exact proportion; his countenance marked by the traces of a severe
small-pox, and, when not animated by social pleasure, rather saturnine
than sprightly. In youth his exterior was rendered agreeable by florid
health, and a smile that indicated good-humour. His portrait, by Wright
of Derby, gives a very exact, but inanimate, representation of his form
and features. In justice to the painter, it must be told, that I believe
the likeness to have been taken after death.

In his medical practice he was by some accused of empiricism. From this
charge, both Miss Seward and Mr. Edgeworth have, I think, justly
vindicated him. The former has recorded a project which he suggested, on
the supposed authority of some old practitioners, but which he did not
execute, for curing one of his consumptive patients by the transfusing
of blood from the veins of a person in health. I have been told, that
when a mother, who seemed to be in the paroxysm of a delirium, expressed
an earnest wish to take her infant into her arms, and her attendants
were fearful of indulging her lest she should do some violence to the
object of her affection, he desired them to commit it to her without
apprehension, and that the result was an immediate abatement of her
disorder. This was an instance rather of strong sagacity than of
extraordinary boldness; for nothing less than a well-founded confidence
in the safety of the experiment could have induced him to hazard it.

I know not whether it be worth relating, that when sent for to a
nobleman, at Buxton, who conceived his health to have suffered by the
use of tea, to which he was immoderately addicted, Darwin rang the bell,
and ordered a pot of strong green tea to be brought up, and, filling
both his patient's