Erasmus Darwin

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802). Portrait by Joseph Wright of Derby (1731-1797), circa 1792. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Erasmus Darwin
Born	12 December 1731 Elston Hall, Elston, Nottinghamshire]]
Died	18 April 1802 (aged 70) Breadsall, Derby
Resting place	All Saints Church, Breadsall
Residence	Lichfield

Dr. Erasmus Darwin (12 December 1731 - 18 April 1802) was an English poet, physician, and man of science. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave trade abolitionist, inventor.

Life

Overview

Darwin was born at Elston, Nottinghamm, and educated at Cambridge and at Edin., where he earned a degree of M.D. He ultimately settled in Lichfield as a physician, and attained a high professional reputation, so much so that he was offered, but declined, the appointment of physician to George III. In 1778 he formed a botanical garden, and in 1789 published his earliest poem, The Loves of the Plants, followed in 1792 by The Economy of Vegetation, which combined form The Botanic Garden. Another poem, The Temple of Nature, was published posthumously. He also wrote various scientific works in prose. The poems of Darwin, though popular in their day, are now little read. Written in polished and sonorous verse, they glitter with startling similes and ingenious, though often forced, analogies, but have little true poetry or human interest.

Family

Darwin was the descendant of a Lincolnshire family. A William Darwin (died 1644) possessed a small estate at Cleatham, and was yeoman of the armoury at Greenwich to James I and Charles I. His son William (born 1620) served in the royalist army, and afterwards became a barrister and recorder of Lincoln and married the daughter of Erasmus Earle, serjeant-at-law.

His eldest son, a 3rd William, married the heiress of Robert Waring of Wilsford, Nottinghamshire, who also inherited the manor of Elston, still in possession of the family. The 3rd William had 2 sons, William and Robert, of whom Robert was educated for the bar, but retired to Elston upon his marriage. He was a member of the Spalding Club. He had 4 sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Robert Waring, had a taste for poetry and botany. He published Principia Botanica’ (3rd edition 1810), containing "many curious notes on biology.’ John, the 3rd son, became rector of Elston; and Erasmus, the 4th, was born at Elston Hall 12 Dec. 1731.

Youth and education

In 1741 Erasmus was sent to Chesterfield School, whence he wrote letters, showing decided talent, to his sister. In 1750 he entered St John's College, Cambridge. Here he held the Exeter scholarship, and in 1754 earned a B.A., being 1st of the junior optimes. At Cambridge he wrote a poem on the death of Prince Frederick of Wales (published in the European Magazine for 1795).

In the autumn of 1754 he went to Edinburgh to study medicine. His father died 20 November 1754. In 1755 he earned an M.B. degree at Cambridge.

Career

Darwin left Edinburgh to settle as a physician at Nottingham in September 1756. As no patients came, he moved in the November following to Lichfield. Here his practice steadily increased to about 1,000l. a year. In December 1757 he married Mary Howard, with whom he lived happily till her death in 1770, after a long illness.

At Lichfield he was familiar with many distinguished men. In 1766, while botanising, he accidentally met Rousseau at Wootton Hall, with whom he afterwards corresponded. He was intimate with Bolton, Watt, Wedgwood, the Sewards, and other well-known men. They held monthly, or, as Darwin called them, "lunar meetings" at each other's houses.

Darwin was a good talker, though troubled by a stammer. He met Johnson, but they disliked each other as heartily as was to be expected; Darwin being a freethinker and a radical, and a dictator in his own circle (Seward, 69-76).

The fame of an ingenious carriage which he had invented brought him the acquaintance of R.L. Edgeworth. At Edgeworth's initial visit Darwin came home with a man whom he had found dead drunk on the road and benevolently taken into his carriage, and who turned out to be Mrs. Darwin's brother. Edgeworth afterwards introduced Thomas Day, author of Sandford and Merton.

Darwin was a man of great bodily and intellectual vigor. He was of large frame and unwieldy in later life, as appears from the characteristic portrait by Wright of Derby, a photograph of which is prefixed to the work by his grandson, Charles Darwin. Several accidents in his youth had made him clumsy in his movements and nervously cautious.

He was exceedingly energetic in his profession, and his carriage was fitted up for reading and writing. Like Blackmore he wrote much of his poetry while visiting his patients (R.L. Edgeworth, ii. 245). He was irascible and imperious, even to his elder children, though he became strongly interested in their success, and was warmly loved by his 2nd family. Although he could be caustic and severe, he acquired the name of "the benevolent," and while despising cant was most actively helpful to real sufferers.

He showed his public spirit by getting up a dispensary at Lichfield and founding the Philosophical Society at Derby (both in 1784). He was a strong advocate of temperance, and for many years an almost total abstainer. He confined himself to English wines, possibly to minimise the temptation to excess. Anna Seward, however, tells a singular story, which had some foundation (Darwin, 59), of his swimming a river in his clothes in a state of "vinous exhilaration," and then delivering a lecture from a tub in the market-place of Nottingham upon prudence and sanitary regulations. He persuaded most of the neighboring gentry to become water-drinkers (Edgeworth, Memoirs, ii. 69).

Darwin had 3 sons by his 1st wife. Charles, the eldest (3 Sept. 1758 - 15 May 1778), gave the highest promise, studying medicine at Edinburgh and receiving a gold medal from the Æsculapian Society for an investigation, but died from a wound received in dissecting. Erasmus (born 1759) became a solicitor in Lichfield and committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity, 30 Dec. 1799. The 3rd son, Robert Waring (born 1766), became a physician at Shrewsbury and acquired a large practice. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1788, and was the father of evolutionist Charles Robert Darwin. He died on 13 Nov. 1848. Charles Darwin's granddaughter, and Eramus Darwin's great-great-granddaughter, was poet Frances Cornford.

In 1781 Darwin married the widow of Colonel Chandos-Pole of Radbourne Hall, whose acquaintance he had made when attending her children in 1778, and to whom he had addressed many passionate poems before her husband's death in 1780. She disliked Lichfield, and upon his 2nd marriage he settled at Radbourne Hall, later moving to Derby and afterwards to Breadsall Priory.

By his 2nd wife Darwin had 4 sons and 3 daughters. His eldest daughter, Violetta, married S. Tertius Galton and was the mother of Francis Galton.

Many anecdotes are told of his kindness to his patients and servants, of his charity to the poor, and his gratuitous attendance upon the inferior clergy of Lichfield. He was accused of avarice, but this was apparently due to a serious acceptance of his own bantering assertion that he only wrote for money. His professional fame was such that George III said that he would take him as his physician if he would come to London. Darwin, however, declined to move.

He was interested in many scientific inquiries and invented many mechanical contrivances. A fool, he said, "is a man who never tried an experiment in his life" (Memoir of Maria Edgeworth, 1867, i. 31). The specially ingenious carriage, which led to the introduction of Edgeworth, caused several accidents, by one of which he broke his knee-cap, and was permanently crippled.

The falsehood of some unfavorable anecdotes given by Seward is fully exposed by Charles Darwin, who attributes her dislike to her failure in marrying him after the death of his 1st wife. She published, indeed, a retractation of an most offensive, imputing a want of natural feeling on his son's death (Darwin, 74; Seward, Letters, iv. 135). Charles Darwin also replies to some statements in the life of Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, who seems to have been shocked by the doctor's rough sceptical talk.

He died at Breadsall Priory, suddenly and painlessly of heart disease, on 18 April 1802.

Writing

The Poetry of Erasmus Darwin's Botanic Garden

Poetry

Darwin sacrificed his early poetical impulses to his profession. In 1775 he sent a friend some verses written after a "twenty years' neglect of the muses," and promised to give up poetry, and prepare a medical work (the Zoonomia) for posthumous publication.

In 1778 Darwin bought 8 acres near Lichfield, where he made a botanical garden. Anna Seward calls the place "a wild umbrageous valley … irriguous from various springs and swampy from their plenitude" (Seward, p. 125); she wrote some verses about it, which suggested his Botanic Garden.

It was for the most part written laboriously, and polished with unsparing care, line by line, often as he rode from one patient to another, and it occupied the leisure hours of many years. The artificial character of the diction renders it in emotional passages stilted and even absurd, and makes Canning's clever caricature, The Loves of the Triangles, often remarkably like the poem it satirizes: in some passages, however, it is not without a stately appropriateness. Gnomes, sylphs and nereids are introduced on almost every page, and personification is carried to an extraordinary excess. Thus he describes the Loves of the Plants according to the Linnaean system by means of a most ingenious but misplaced and amusing personification of each plant, and often even of the parts of the plant. It is significant that botanical notes are added to the poem, and that its eulogies of scientific men are frequent. Erasmus Darwin's mind was in fact rather that of a man of science than that of a poet.

The 2nd part, the "Loves of the Plants," was published 1st in 1789; the 1st part, the Economy of Vegetation, in 1792 (4th edit. in 1799). The book was at first anonymous, and the opening verses of the Loves of the Plants were taken without acknowledgment from the lines Seward which suggested the whole. She complains of this proceeding, though he oddly appears to have considered it as "a compliment," which he was "bound to pay." He had also sent the same verses to the Gentleman's Magazine, where they appeared with Seward's name in May 1783 (cf. Seward, Darwin, 132; Letters, ii. 312, iii. 155; R.L. Edgeworth, ii. 245; Monthly Mag. 1803, ii. 100).

The poem had a singular success, was warmly admired by Walpole, and praised in a joint poem by Cowper and Hayley. The famous "Loves of the Triangles," in the Anti-Jacobin, suddenly revealed its absurd side to ordinary readers. Darwin himself is said by Edgeworth to have admired the parody (Monthly Magazine, 1802, p. 115; Seward, p. 207, gives a different account).

Darwin's poetry would be forgotten were it not for Canning's parody. He followed the model of Pope, just then passing out of favor, for his versification, and expounded in his notes the theory that poetry should consist of word-painting. He had great facility of language, but the effort to give an interest to scientific didacticism in verse by elaborate rhetoric and forced personification was naturally a failure. Darwin would not have shrunk from Coleridge's favorite phrase, "Inoculation, heavenly maid."

Yet it is remarkable that Darwin's bad poetry everywhere shows a powerful mind. Coleridge, in the Biographia Literaria, speaks of the impression which it made even upon good judges, and says that he compared it to the Russian palace of old, "glittering, cold, and transitory’ (Biog. Lit., 1817, p. 19). It was translated into French, Portuguese, and Italian.

The Temple of Nature; or, The origin of society: A poem with philosophical notes, appeared posthumously in 1803. A collected edition of his poetical works was published in 1807.

Prose

His earliest prose work was a paper contributed to the Philosophical Transactions in 1757. He published in 1794-1796 Zoonomia; or. The laws of organic life, and in 1799 Phytologia; or, The philosophy of agriculture and gardening, which contain many of his speculations. In 1797 appeared A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools, with some sensible remarks. It was written to help 2 illegitimate daughters who had opened a school at Ashbourne.

The permanent interest in his writings depends upon his exposition of the form of evolutionism afterwards expounded by Lamarck. He caught a glimpse of many observations and principles, afterwards turned to account by his grandson, Charles Darwin; but, though a great observer and an acute thinker, he missed the characteristic doctrine which made the success of his grandson's scheme. He attributes the modifications of species to the purposeful adaptations of individuals to their wants, and endows plants with a kind of life and intelligence.

File:Darwin cutout.gif

Stone-cast bust of Erasmus Darwin, by W. J. Coffee, c. 1795

File:Erasmus Darwin House.jpg

Darwin's House in Lichfield, now a museum dedicated to his life and work.

Recognition

Francis Galton erected a monument to his grandfather in Lichfield Cathedral.

Erasmus Darwin House, his home in Lichfield, is now a museum dedicated to Darwin and his life's work.

A school in nearby Chasetown recently converted to Academy status, and is now known as Erasmus Darwin Academy.

Darwin is commemorated on 1 of the Lunar Society Moonstones, a series of monuments in Birmingham, England.

A building on the Nottingham Trent University Clifton Campus is named after him. It is the centre for science teaching, academic offices, and study space.

In popular culture

• Charles Sheffield, an author noted largely for hard science fiction, wrote a number of stories featuring Darwin in a manner quite similar to Sherlock Holmes. These stories were collected in a book, The Amazing Dr. Darwin.
• Darwin's opposition to slavery in poetry was included by Benjamin Zephaniah in a reading. This inspired the establishment of the Genomic Dub Collective, whose album includes quotations from Erasmus "Ras" Darwin, his grandson Charles Darwin and Haile Selassie.
• The forgetting of Erasmus' designs for a rocket is a major plot point in Stephan Baxter's tale of alternate universes, Manifold: Origin.
• Phrases from Darwin's poem The Botanic Garden are used as chapter headings in The Pornographer of Vienna by Lewis Crofts.
• British poet J.H. Prynne took on the pseudonym Erasmus W. Darwin for his "plant time" bulletins in the pages of Bean News (1972).

Publications

Poetry

• The Loves of the Plants. London, J. Johnson, 1789; New York: Woodstock Books, 1991.
• The Botanic Garden. London, J. Johnson, 1791. Part I: The Economy of Vegetation; Part II: The Loves of the Plants
• The Golden Age: A poetical epistle. London: F. & C. Rivington / Oxford, UK: J. Cooke, 1794.
• The Temple of Nature; or, The origin of society: A poem. London, J. Johnson, 1803
  • facsimile edition, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1973.
• The Poetical Works. London: T. Bensley, for J. Johnson, 1806.
• Remembrance. Birmingham, UK: Thomson & Wrightson, 1812.
• Cosmologia: A sequence of epic poems, in three parts (edited by Stuart Harris). Sheffield, UK: S. Harris, 2002.

Non-fiction

• Zoonomia; or, The laws of organic life. (2 volumes), London, J. Johnson; Volume I, 1794; Volume II, 1796
  • New York: T. & J. Swords, for Columbia College, 1796; Cambridge University Press, 2009 ISBN 978-1-108-00549-4
• A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools, &c. J. Derby, UK: J. Drewry; for J. Johnson, London, 1797; Philadelphia: John Omrod, 1798.
• Phytologia; or, The philosophy of agriculture and gardening. London: T. Bensley, for J. Johnson, 1800.

Collected editions

• The Essential Writings (edited by Desmond King-Hele). London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968.
• The Collected Writings (edited by Martin Priestman). Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004.

Translated

• A System of Vegetables: According to their classes, orders ... translated from the 13th edition of Linnaeus’ Systema Vegetabiliium. (2 volumes), Lichfield, UK: J. Jackson, for Leigh and Sotheby, London, 1783. Volume I
• The Families of Plants: With their natural characters ... translated from the last edition of Linnaeus’ Genera Plantarum. Lichfield, UK: John Jackson, for J. Johnson / T. Byrne / J. Balfour, 1787.

Letters

• The Letters (edited by Desmond King-Hele). Cambridge, UK, & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
• The Collected Letters (edited by Desmond King-Hele). Cambridge, UK, & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Except where noted, bibliographical information ocurtesy WorldCat.

See also

The Temple of Nature (excerpt) by Erasmus Darwin 1731-1802

• List of British poets
• Timeline of Britiish poetry

References

•  Stephen, Leslie (1888) "Darwin, Erasmus" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 14 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 84-87  Wikisource, Web, Dec. 31, 2017.
• King-Hele, Desmond. 1963. Doctor Darwin. Scribner's, N.Y.
• King-Hele, Desmond. 1977. Doctor of Revolution: the life and genius of Erasmus Darwin. Faber, London.
• King-Hele, Desmond. 1999. Erasmus Darwin: a life of unequalled achievement Giles de la Mare Publishers.
• King-Hele, Desmond (ed) 2002. Charles Darwin's 'The Life of Erasmus Darwin Cambridge University Press.
• Krause, Ernst 1879. Erasmus Darwin, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. Murray, London.
• Pearson, Hesketh. 1930. Doctor Darwin. Dent, London.
• Porter, Roy, 1989. 'Erasmus Darwin: doctor of evolution?' in 'History, Humanity and Evolution: Essays for John C. Greene, ed. James R. Moore.
• Seward, Anna. 1804. Memoirs of the life of Dr. Darwin.
• Uglow, Jennifer 2003. Lunar Men: the friends who made the future Faber, London.
•  Stephen, Leslie (1888) "Darwin, Erasmus" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 14 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 84-87  Wikisource, Web, Dec. 31, 2017.

External links

Poems

• Erasmus Darwin 1731-1802 at the Poetry Foundation
• Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) info & 4 cantos at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• Erasmus Darwin at PoemHunter (12 poems)
• Erasmus Darwin at Poetry Nook (22 poems)

Prose

• "On the Spenserian Stanza"

Books

• Works by Erasmus Darwin at Project Gutenberg

Books

• Eramus Darwin at Amazon.com

About

• Erasmus Darwin in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) at University of California, Berkeley
• "Preface and 'a preliminary notice'" by Charles Darwin in Ernst Krause, Erasmus Darwin (1879)
• "[https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3353945/Browne_Botany.pdf?sequence=2 Botany for Gentleman: Erasmus Darwin and 'The Loves of the Plants'"

Etc.

• Erasmus Darwin House, Lichfield
• Revolutionary Players website

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Darwin, Erasmus