order that he might devote himself to literature. At that place of worship, a few a few years afterwards, Charles Darwin attended with the family from The Mount; and thus High-street Chapel is associated with two of the greatest names of the nineteenth century.

Charles Darwin was born at The Mount on the 12th of February, 1809.1 The house (of which we give an engraving from a sketch taken for this paper) lies above the steep banks of the Severn, on the outskirts of the town, and is a conspicuous object from the Great Western Railway, on the left, as the train leaves Shrewsbury Station for Chester.2 At the time of Charles Darwin's birth, his mother was in declining health. Two years earlier, when she had already several children round her, she wrote to a friend"Everyone seems young but me;" and in July, 1817, when Charles was between eight and nine, she died. Young as he was, she seems to have impressed his mind by her teaching, for one of his schoolfellows, the Rev. W. A. Leighton, remembers him plucking a plant, and recalling one of her elementary lessons in botany; but in later life Charles retained only the

Christened].

1 "1809, November 17, Darwin, Charles Robert, son of Robert and Mrs. Susannah his wife, born February 12th." From the Parish Register of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury. 2 The house is seen from the line immediately beyond the low tower of St. George's Church. Visitors who make a pilgrimage there, after crossing the Welsh Bridge, follow the main street until St. George's Church is passed, and the continuous line of houses ceases. The next carriage drive, on the right, cutting in two a lofty side-walk, is the entrance to The Mount. A short street of new houses near St. George's Church has been called "Darwin Street"; as yet the only public recognition in the town of the greatest of Salopians. A memorial of a more private character has been placed in the Unitarian Chapel, in the form of a tablet bearing the following inscription :-" To the memory of Charles Robert Darwin, author of the Origin of Species,' born in Shrewsbury, February 12th, 1809. In early life a member of and constant worshipper in this Church. Died April 19th,1882." Mrs. Darwin, we believe, was not strict in her adhesion to the communion in which she had been brought up, but often attended St. Chad's Church where Charles and his brother were baptised.

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vaguest recollections of his mother. Besides Charles, the family consisted of an elder son, Erasmus, and four daughters, one of whom married Dr. Parker of Shrewsbury (where his son, the Rev. Charles Parker, still resides), while another became the wife of her cousin, Mr. Wedgwood. It is a singular fact that Miss Darwin, her brother Charles, their father, and their grandfather, himself a Wedgwood, all married Wedgwoods. Erasmus Darwin, who died September 2nd, 1881, will be remembered as the friend of the Carlyles. Erasmus Darwin, a most diverse kind of mortal, came to seek us out very soon, and continues ever since to be a quiet house-friend, honestly attached. He had something of original and sarcastically ingenious in him, one of the sincerest, naturally truest, and most modest of men. E. Darwin

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it was who named the late Whewell, seeing him sit, all ear (not all assent) at some of my lectures, the Harmonious Blacksmith;' a really descriptive title. My dear, one had a great favour for this honest Darwin always; many a road, to shops and the like, he drove her in his cab (Darwingium Cabbum' comparable to Georgium Sidus), in those early days when even the charge of omnibuses was a consideration, and his sparse utterances, sardonic often, were a great amusement to her. A perfect gentleman,' she at once discerned him to be, and of sound worth and kindliness, in the most unaffected form. 'Take me now to Oxygen-street, a dyer's shop there!" Darwin, without a wrinkle or remark, made for Oxenden-street, and drew up at the required door. Amusingly admirable to us both, when she came home."1 The graphic sketch of Erasmus is worth giving here, throwing another gleam of light for us on the family of the Darwins. Erasmus, in his modesty, and kindness of heart, and quiet humour, must have resembled Charles, to whom Carlyle "rather preferred him for intellect"!

1 Reminiscences, by Thomas Carlyle. Vol. II., p. 207-9.

There could hardly have been a better home than Charles Darwin's for the training of a young naturalist; the "acute observer at the head of it, and the mother, adding to her gentle, sympathizing nature, a cultivated intelligence and a keen delight in her husband's pursuits. Together they took an interest in botany and zoology, and the gardens of The Mount, by the time Charles was old enough to play in them, were filled with rare shrubs and trees, and beautiful flowers.1 They petted and reared birds and other animals, and it is particularly interesting, remembering the important position which pigeons afterwards occupied in Charles Darwin's investigations, to read that "the beauty, variety, and tameness of The Mount pigeons were well known in the town and far beyond.' After Mrs. Darwin's death the doctor's daughters helped him in his many acts of kindness to the poor. Together they established one of the first Infant Schools in Shrewsbury (close to Millington's Hospital in Frankwell, on land leased by the trustees of that charity), and, with characteristic readiness to welcome every improvement, furnished it with the appliances which had lately been introduced by Pestalozzi and other educational reformers. In his late years, Dr. Darwin was called the "Father of Frankwell," the suburb of Shrewsbury in which The Mount is situated. He died on the 13th of November, 1848, and at his funeral the poor, who lost in him a wise and life-long friend, and even the children, whom he always noticed with kindly affection, publicly shewed their grief at his departure.2

1 "The Dr. sends you by tomorrow's Coach some suckers of the white Poplar, and as they have good roots, he has no doubt of their growing. If you want more, say so, and they shall be sent. It is the common white Poplar. It is become so fashionable a tree that Lady Bromley has sent for some cuttings for Baroness Howe to decorate Pope's Villa at Twickenham, as all his favourite trees have been cut down."-Mrs. Darwin to Josiah Wedgwood, February 8, 1808.

2 "That, like his son, he was benevolently inclined, may be inferred from a little anecdote which we once heard Mr. Darwin tell of him while speaking of the curious kinds of pride which are sometimes