DARWIN. "as adapted to love-scenes, and being thence a proper residence for the modern goddess of Botany," is taken from these sequestered shades:—
And if with thee some hapless maid should stray,
Disastrous Love companion of her way,
Oh lead her timid steps to yonder glade,
Whose arching cliffs depending alders shade:
There as meek Evening wakes her temperate breeze,
And moonbeams glimmer through the trembling
trees,
The rills, that guggle round, shall soothe her ear;
The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear, &c. &c.
Canto 1. line 25.
In 1780, Dr Darwin was called to attend Colonel Sacheveral Pole, of Radbourne-hall, four miles from Derby: and a few months after the decease of the colonel, he married his relief, Mrs Pole, with a jointure of 600l. per annum. The marriage of Dr Darwin occasioned his immediate removal from Litchfield to Radbourne, where he resided two years, till he got accommodated with a house in Derby. In this last situation he remained till about two months before his death, when he removed to Breadwall Priory about three miles from Derby, which was a commodious and peaceful retirement for his old age.
During the last few years, Dr Darwin was much subject to inflammation in his breast and lungs; and had a very serious attack of this disease in the course of the spring of 1801, from which, after repeated bleedings, he with difficulty recovered. On the 10th of April 1802, he was attacked with a severe shivering fit, followed by a correspondent hot one, and accompanied with symptoms of inflammation in his lungs: his surgeon, Mr Hadley, took from him, in the course of the day, 25 ounces of blood. The fever was removed, and in two or three days he became to all appearance quite well. On the 17th as he was walking in his garden with Mrs Darwin and a lady of about his own age, the latter remarked, that he would have sufficient employment for ten years in bringing all his plans about the place to perfection. "You madam (he replied) have as good a prospect as any body I know, of your age, of living ten years; I have not." Mrs Darwin remarked his good looks, spirits, and strength. He said, "I always appear particularly well immediately before I become ill." He sat with his family in the evening, conversing with his usual cheerfulness; went to bed, and rose at six on the following morning; wrote some letters till after seven, when he was seized with a chilly fit, which increased, and was attended with thirst. He then sat down by the kitchen fire and drank a considerable quantity of butter-milk; but feeling himself much indisposed, he lay down on a sofa, when becoming more cold and torpid, he was raised up, and placed in an arm-chair, where, without pain or any emotion, he expired a little before nine, in the 71st year of his age.
Dr Darwin left a widow and six children, three boys and three girls, by his last marriage. There was also another child, who died an infant. Beside these, he left two natural daughters whom he had established in a school at Ashbourne, and for whose instruction
and assistance he composed and published his "Treatise on Female Education."