ERASMUS, a physician, a poet, and medical writer, was born at Elston, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, on the 12th December 1731. He was the fourth son of Robert Darwin, Esq. He received the early part of his education at Chesterfield school, under the reverend Mr Burrows, of whom he always spoke with great respect. He was entered, with two of his elder brothers, at St John's college, Cambridge; and, being intended for the practice of medicine, took the degree of M. B. in 1755, defending in his thesis an opinion, that the motion of the heart and arteries is produced by the immediate stimulus of the blood. During his residence in Cambridge, Mr Darwin was elected to one of Lord Exeter's scholarships, worth about 16l. per annum, which, from the meagreness of his father's income at that time, was esteemed a desirable acquisition. After having prepared himself for his future profession, by an attendance on the lectures of Dr Hunter, in London, and by a severe course of study at Edinburgh, he contemplated the metropolis as the proper theatre for his exertions. Deterred, however, by the want of an immediate introduction, and the improbability of obtaining immediate patronage, Dr Darwin thought it altogether more advisable to settle in the country. The first place to which he went, in the capacity of a physician, was Nottingham, where he was entirely disappointed in his hopes of practice; he removed, therefore, to Litchfield, with letters of introduction to Lady Grey and the reverend Mr Seward. Here his great capacity and various acquirements were most justly appreciated; he resided at Litchfield during a great number of years, in the enjoyment of a very extensive reputation, and a very profitable practice, the foundation of which is supposed to have been laid by his success in restoring to health a gentleman of fortune in the neighbourhood, whose recovery was despaired of by a numerous circle of friends and acquaintances.

In the year 1757 Dr Darwin married Miss Mary Howard, daughter of Charles Howard, Esq. by his wife, Elizabeth Foley: she died in 1770. By this lady he had five children, two of whom died in their infancy: the eldest son, Charles, he educated to his own profession, but he died in the 20th year of his age, very soon after he had finished his course of studies at Edinburgh, where he gained considerable reputation, by endeavouring to furnish a criterion for distinguishing pus from mucus.

Soon after the decease of his wife, Dr Darwin commenced his laborious work, the Zoonomia, which, however, he did not think proper to publish till about eight years since.

In 1778 he obtained a lease of a picturesque spot of ground, about a mile from Litchfield, where a cold bath was erected by Sir John Flayer, an eminent physician in the beginning of the last century: there is a grotto, surrounded by projecting rocks, from the edges of which trickles a perpetual shower of water. This place became his favourite retreat and amusement: here he formed a botanic garden, and began his poem on the "Loves of the Plants," the scenery of which, Darwin. "as adapted to love-scenes, and being thence a proper residence for the modern goddess of Botany," is taken from those sequestered shades:—

And if with thee some hapless maid should stray, Difalrous 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 I. line 25.

In 1780, Dr Darwin was called to attend Colonel Sacheverel Pole, of Radbourne-hall, four miles from Derby: and a few months after the decease of the colonel, he married his relish, 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."

During the whole of his life, Dr Darwin was remarkable for great benevolence of disposition, and it was particularly conspicuous in the care he took even of the lowest animals. The keenness of his feelings on this subject has been attributed to the strong impression made upon his mind by the representation of the tortures of the inquisition, which was shown to him at an early age. He had frequently expressed a strong desire, that the termination of his existence might be without pain, having always looked upon death as the least evil of the two. He was of a middle stature, in person gross and corpulent; his features were coarse, and his countenance heavy; if not wholly void of animation, it certainly was by no means expressive. In his gait and dress he was rather clumsy and slovenly, and frequently walked with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

His conversation abounded with very unequal sallies of wit: when he found himself engaged with a powerful antagonist in argument, he had sometimes recourse to ridicule, a weapon which he did not always handle with dexterity, for he was afflicted with an impediment in his speech which rendered his enunciation scarcely intelligible.

About the age of twenty-one, Dr Darwin was seized with a fit of the gout; in consequence of which he totally abstained from all fermented liquours, not even tasting small beer, or a drop of any kind of wine; but he ate plentifully of flesh-meat, and all kinds of vegetables and fruit, using for his drink, at meals, chiefly water alone, or cream and water, with tea and coffee between them, as usual. By this abstinence from fermented liquors, he kept quite free from gout for 15 years, and from some other complaints to which he had been subject. He then indulged himself occasionally with a little wine and water; cider and water, &c. but was speedily admonished into his former temperance, by a paroxysm of the gout. He was in the habit of eating a large quantity of food, and his stomach possessed a strong power of digestion. His advice frequently was, "Eat, or be eaten;" but he took every opportunity to impress a dread of all fermented liquors on the minds of his patients, whose diseases he was too ready to represent as originating in the frequent use of them. In the "Botanic Garden," he has also taken an opportunity to express his strong antipathy against fermented and spirituous liquors, by comparing their effects to that of the Promethean fire: "The ancient story of Prometheus, who concealed in his bosom the fire he had stolen, and afterwards had a vulture perpetually gnawing his liver, afford so apt an allegory for the effects of drinking spirituous liquors, that one should be induced to think the art of distillation, as well as some other chemical processes (such as calcining gold) had been known in times of great antiquity, and lost again. The swallowing drams cannot be better represented in hieroglyphic language, than by taking fire into one's bosom; and certain it is, that the general effect of drinking fermented or spirituous liquors is an inflamed, februous, or paralytic liver, with its various critical or consequential diseases, as leprous eruptions on the face, gout, dropfy, epilepsy, and infamy." The various productions of Dr Darwin's fanciful and philosophical pen, have long since been exposed to public criticism, and received an ample share, as well of obloquy as applause. Still, however, he has claims to celebrity from the literary lustre which adorns his character, as a medical philosopher, a philosophical agriculturist, and a poet.

The pretensions of Dr Darwin to high rank as a medical philosopher will, of course, sublimate themselves in the merits, numerous and solid as they are, of the "Zoonomia." In whichever point of view this work shall be considered, whether as a mere repository of curious natural and medical facts, or as a scheme and system of pathological and physiological disquisition, is probably matter of trifling import, so far as the reputation of its author is concerned. By either mode of appreciation, it is, unquestionably, a noble effort of human labour or of human wit; and though its illustrious author may have sometimes erred from excess of ingenuity, and been occasionally blinded by too great a love of system, the Zoonomia will ever be considered as a production of transcendent merit.

As a philosophical agriculturist Dr Darwin must ever be entitled to the highest consideration. In order to profit by the multitudinous experiments of Hales, Grew, Malpighi, Bonnet, Du Hamel, Buffon, Spallanzani, Priestley, &c. collected in the "Phytologia," it is not necessary to take possession of the air-built theory of vegetation which is there constructed, and securely inhabit it as an edifice whose solidity is equal to its elegance. Whether the analogy is in fact so close between the parts and functions of animal and vegetable beings;—whether the anatomy of the one so strictly corresponds with that of the other, as to induce a belief that the latter are in reality an inferior order of the former, possessed of a brain, uterus, muscles, and complete nervous system, is an inquiry, which, however curious, must surely be subordinate in comparison with those grand and indisputable discoveries which the application of chemistry to agriculture has brought to light. A small portion only of the Phytologia is devoted to this fanciful system of vegetable physiology: the second part, divided into three sections, treats on the economy of vegetation; and the third, on agriculture and horticulture, is divided into six sections.

Dr Darwin, in his character as a poet, does not stand very high in the estimation of some. The ear is fascinated and seduced by the mellifluity of his numbers, but there is a harlotry in his embellishments which is unchaste. His cadences are not sufficiently varied for a poem of such length as the "Botanic Garden;" indeed there is an evident mechanism in the construction of his lines which it is by no means pleasant to detect. But an imagination of unrivalled richness; a felicity of allusion to whatever can throw lustre on his subject, to ancient mythology and modern discoveries, to the works of nature and of art; if these are some of the essentials of poetry, Dr Darwin may certainly claim them as his own. No man, perhaps, was ever happier in the selection and composition of his epithets, had a more imperial command of words, or could elucidate with such accuracy and elegance the most complex and intricate machinery. Who but Dr Darwin would have thought of describing a porcelain manufactory in verse; the powers and construction of a steam engine; the mechanism of a watch; and the complexity of a cotton mill? These, and many similar descriptions, to be found in the Botanic Garden, are inimitable in their way. In some of his minor effusions he is particularly happy: the beautiful little song "to May," is exquisitely finished; and it would be difficult to find thirty lines in the Botanic Garden to rival in dignity and pathos the "Address to Swilcar's Oak," introduced in the Phytologia.

As a prose writer, Dr Darwin was incorrect; his grammatical errors are numerous, and he was even deficient in orthography. In the year 1758, he published, in the Philosophical Transactions, "An attempt to confute the opinion of Henry Earl, concerning the ascent of vapour;" and "An account of the cure of a periodical haemoptœ, by keeping the patient awake." This was followed by "Experiments on animal fluids in the exhausted receiver." He inserted in the Derby Mercury, an elegy written at Matlock, and addressed to Mrs Darwin; another piece occasioned by the appearance of a most fatal distemper among horned cattle, at Calke, near Derby; and a third article on occasion of the earthquake, which several years ago was felt at Derby, and in the surrounding country. In 1782, the Botanical Society of Litchfield published a translation of Linnaeus's Systēma Vegetabilium, the execution of which was principally confided to Dr Darwin. His other works have already been mentioned in the course of this biographical sketch. He left a poem entitled "The Temple of Nature," which was published after his death.

Next to medicine, mechanics, and almost every branch of natural history, engaged his attention. He not only pursued these studies with great ardour and diligence himself, but also embraced every opportunity of cultivating and encouraging them among his numerous connexions and acquaintance. Very soon after he settled in Derby, he instituted and established a philosophical society and library, both of which were in a flourishing state at the time of his decease. He also took pleasure in encouraging works in natural history.

But though the learning, taste, and genius of Dr Darwin, were eminently displayed in these pursuits, yet there was one great end, to the attainment of which all his talents and views were directed. He did not hesitate openly and repeatedly to declare, that the acquisition of wealth was the leading object of all his literary undertakings.

However, he was by no means insensible to the value of reputation. During the last years of his life, the love of fame was a passion which had great power over his mind; and the incense of praise was so pleasant to him, that flattery was found to be the most successful means of gaining his notice and favour.

There are reasons for suspecting that Dr Darwin was not a believer in Divine Revelation. A few days before his death, a gentleman endeavoured to discover whether he entertained a belief and expectation of a future state of existence; the doctor was observed to speak with a considerable degree of sedateness on the subject, and remarked, that it was natural to extend our wishes and views beyond the present scene, and that DAT

Darwin that it was right to pursue such measures as are likely to secure our happiness in another world; "but," he added, "let us not hear any thing about hell."