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families, with many of whom it was not yet the custom to spend the season in London. Balls, suppers, oyster-feasts, meets of hounds, and an occasional visit from a party of strolling players," made up the winter's festivities, in which the Darwins soon began to take their part; for in June, 1807, we find the doctor's wife, in a letter to her brother Josiah Wedgwood (who was to become Charles Darwin's father-in-law), saying that they can wait for their new dinner-service, because "it is not the custom in this town to give dinners in summer." Shrewsbury "still wore much of its middleage aspect." Most of the houses of the better sort differed little in style from what they were in the days of the Tudors; many of the shops displayed their wares on baulks and hanging shutters; "the streets were badly paved and scarcely lighted at all. Coming to this quaint old town, Robert Darwin took up his residence on St. John's Hill, but in a short time the property at The Mount was bought, and the house built in which he settled down, after his marriage, for fifty years more of prosperous life. This was in 1796,1 a little less than two years before Coleridge visited Shrewsbury, and preached, at the Unitarian Chapel, still standing in High-street, the famous sermon which Hazlitt heard after his comfortless walk in the mud from his home at Wem, and "could not have been more delighted if he had heard the music of the spheres." The Darwins were most likely present when the poet's voice "rose like a steam of rich-distilled perfumes," as he gave out the text, out the text, "And He went up into the Mountain to pray, Himself, Alone." Coleridge staid with the Tayleurs, who were old friends of the Wedgwoods, at their house on St. John's Hill, near the Quarry; and the poet was inclined to become the minister of High-street Chapel, when Mrs. Darwin's brothers intervened, with their offer of £150 a year, in

1 "April 18, 1796, married at St. Marylebone Church, Dr. Darwin of Shrewsbury, to Miss Wedgwood, eldest daughter of the late Josiah Wedgwood of Etruria, Staffordshire." Gent. Mag., Vol. LXVI., p. 851.

order that he might devote himself to literature.

At that place of worship, 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

C [hristened].

11809, 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 baptized.

Besides Charles,

vaguest recollections of his mother. 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 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." 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 "!

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