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Darwin says of him-"I feel sure that Mr. Francis Galton will be willing to attribute the remarkable originality of his mind in a large part to inheritance from his maternal grandfather."1

In an archæological publication no excuse is needed for beginning a paper on Darwin with some account of his ancestry, but it is particularly interesting to observe the circumstances and tendencies in both his father's and mother's families which certainly had something to do with the evolution of his genius and character. The first of the Darwins of whom anything is known was William, yeoman of the armoury of Greenwich in the time of James I. and Charles I., and the owner of a small estate at Cleatham in Lincolnshire. His son William, a cavalry officer who suffered heavy loss as a royalist, married the daughter of Erasmus Earle, sergeant-at-law; and the wife of their eldest son, another William, was heiress of Robert Waring of Wilsford, Nottinghamshire; from which unions Charles's father and grandfather derived their Christian names.

It was one of the two sons of William Darwin and Miss Waring, Robert Darwin of Elston, father of Erasmus, who, first of the family, as far as we know, showed those scientific tastes which have made the

name illustrious. He was an early member of the Spalding Club, and Stukeley, the antiquary, writing in the Philosophical Transactions of April and May, 1719,

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If Mr. Galton had devoted a chapter to "Inventors he must have included the Wedgwoods. Thomas, Josiah Wedgwood's youngest son, the generous friend of Coleridge, was a man of rare intelligence, and Miss Meteyard collects a good deal of evidence to show that he was the inventor of the photograph. Amongst the writers of our own day the name of Wedgwood survives; and another descendant was Sir Henry Holland, the author and physician. His grandmother was sister of Josiah Wedgwood, of whom he says-"This admirable man was endeared to all around him in domestic and social life Even as a child I received kindnesses from him, which I gladly keep in remembrance. Through him I came into family connection with his eminent grandson, Charles Darwin, a long and intimate friendship with whom I have more pleasure in recording than any family tie."-Recollections of Past Life.

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says he has an account from his friend Robert Darwin, 66 a person of curiosity," of "a human Sceleton impressed in stone, found lately by the Rector of Elston . . the like whereof has not been observed before in this island, to my knowledge." Robert Darwin had four sons, of whom both the eldest and the youngest were authors and botanical students. The former, Robert Waring of Elston, published Principia Botanica, which reached the honour of at least a third edition; of the youngest, Erasmus, who was born at Elston Hall, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, in December, 1731, Dr. Krause says that "equally eminent as philanthropist, physician, naturalist, philosopher, and poet, he is far less knowr. and valued by posterity than he deserves.' English critic of the present day would not write in this way of Erasmus Darwin's poetry, but the price given for the second instalment of the Botanic Garden, a thousand guineas, is sufficient proof of its remarkable popularity at the time, and Horace Walpole declares that the Triumph of Flora" contains "the most sublime passage in any author, or in any of the few languages with which I am acquainted"! Canning's parody shattered Erasmus Darwin's poetic reputation, and now the "happier lays" which almost excited Cowper's envy would be completely forgotten if the writer had not won a more enduring fame as a student of nature, an original thinker, and a vigorous friend of humanity. Yet, so unsuccessful was he in convincing his contemporaries, that a writer in the second volume of the Edinburgh Review says his "reveries in science have probably no other chance of being saved from oblivion." than that which they derive from their poetic form. In some points he and his grandson, who has converted these reveries in science into accepted truths, differed greatly; but it is impossible to study the lives of Erasmus and Charles without being struck by the likeness between Dr. Darwin of Lichfield and his more illustrious descendant. Erasmus, indeed, was the intellectual father of Charles, and was in many ways an

excellent man, but in the life of the grandson virtue as well as genius seemed to reach almost their ripest development.

Dr. Darwin's first wife, Mary Howard, a charming woman, with whom he lived in great happiness, died in 1770, leaving Robert Waring, then a child of four, and two elder sons. In 1781 the doctor married the widow of Colonel Chandos Pole, and in 1802 he died at Breadsall Priory, near Derby. It was near the close of his life, in 1794, that he published Zoonomia, which was at once translated into German, French, and Italian, and which excites fresh interest now, because, amidst much that is fanciful and extravagant, it suggests the theory of Evolution established by the researches and experiments of his grandson In 1800 the Zoonomia was followed by Phytologia, or "The Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening ;" and the Temple of Nature, a didactic poem, appeared the year after the writer's death. In all these works, as well as in the Botanic Garden, the curious student finds many observations shadowing forth the conclusions which have been reached in a more scientific way by the author of the Descent of Man. The "expression of the emotions," the "variation of animals under domestication," the "fertilization of plants," the "origin of species," the struggle for existence," identified as they now are with the name of Charles Darwin, all come within the range of his grandfather's speculations; and, summing up his observations, he asks whether we may conjecture that one and the same kind of living filaments is and has been the cause of all organic life."

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"A fool, Mr. Edgeworth, you know, is a man who

1 Of Dr. Darwin's sons, Charles (by his first wife) was a medical student of great promise, who died young; and Francis (by his second wife), a physician, shared the family taste for natural history. He "travelled far in countries rarely visited, and kept a number of wild and curious animals." One of his sons, Captain Darwin, has published the Gamekeeper's Manual, which (says Charles Darwin)" shows keen observation and knowledge of the habits of various animals.”

never tried an experiment in his life." Erasmus Darwin, who gave this definition of a fool, made many experiments. He took a keen interest in mechanics, as his grandson did, and one of his inventions, a horizontal windmill, was used by Wedgwood for grinding flints; but in most cases he scarcely went beyond sketches and suggestions. So it is with his studies in biology and natural history. Here, also, what he gives us is a sketch or a suggestion, instead of facts built up on many converging proofs. That was the work reserved for his grandson, who could never have apologized, as Erasmus did, "for many conjectures not supported_by accurate investigation or conclusive experiments." For Charles Darwin was so far removed from his grandfather's definition of a fool, that he could spend thirty years over a single experiment, and he waited to present his theories to the world until they seemed to be established by the accumulated results of observation and experience. The grandson fell upon happier times, when men's minds were more open to receive new theories, but it required Charles Darwin's peculiar genius to convert the speculations of Erasmus, and of still earlier thinkers, into the foundations of scientific knowledge.

Darwin speaks of his grandfather's "prophetic sagacity," and the phrase is well applied. In many domains of human activity he foresaw what has been since accomplished. It was years before the first locomotive was constructed when he wrote

Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered Steam, afar, Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car; and in other fields besides that of science he was before his time which has been characteristic of the Darwins. For many years he was a teetotaller, before teetotalism was heard of in this country, and he is credited with having diminished to a sensible extent the practice of drinking amongst the gentry of the county He advocated a more humane treatment of the insane; he denounced slavery fifty years before it was abolished;

and his views on education and sanitary reform have waited almost until our own time to be carried into practice. He was distinguished, not only by his general benevolence, but by his considerate kindness to his dependents, and on this subject Charles Darwin tells a story which may be introduced here because it has some local interest. Writing to his son at Shrewsbury, with reference to a small debt, Erasmus asks him to use the money in buying a goose pie, for which, it seems, Shrewsbury was then famous, and to send it at Christmas to an old woman at Birmingham; "for she, as you may remember, was your nurse, which is the greatest obligation, if well performed, that can be received from an interior." ~

In Josiah Wedgwood (Charles Darwin's maternal grandfather), says Miss Meteyard, "the ability of generations culminated in genius; " and it is a very attractive picture which she draws of the great potter, and his family, and friends, amongst the most intimate of whom were the Darwins. The Wedgwoods, coming from Weggewode, near Newcastle-under-Lyne, appear to have settled in the neighbourhood of Burslem early in the middle ages, and one of the family, named John, "resided at Dunwood, near Leek, towards the close of the fifteenth century." In course of time the Wedgwoods married and intermarried with the Burslems of Burslem, and had many children; and the landed property, at first considerable, was much divided, so that, towards the end of the seventeenth century, several members of the family took up the trade of the district and handed it down to their descendants. Thomas Wedgwood the potter, born in 1687, married the daughter of Mr. Stringer, a Dissenting minister, who is supposed to have been connected with Shropshire by birth or descent. He was He was "a man of superior attainments and high moral worth," and his noble character, as Miss Meteyard justly says, certainly did not die with him. The youngest child of this marriage, Josiah Wedgwood, was born at the Churchyard House,

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