‘Zoonomia’) for posthumous publication. In 1778 he bought eight acres near Lichfield, where he made a botanical garden. Miss Seward calls the place ‘a wild umbrageous valley … irriguous from various springs and swampy from their plenitude’ (Seward, p. 125). Miss Seward wrote some verses about it, which suggested his ‘Botanic Garden.’ The second part, the ‘Loves of the Plants,’ was published first in 1789; the first 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 by Miss 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 Miss 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; Miss Seward, p. 207, gives a different account). 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.
His first prose work was a paper contributed to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ in 1757. He published in 1794–6 ‘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 two illegitimate daughters who had opened a school at Ashbourne. 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.
Darwin's poetry would be forgotten were it not for Canning's parody. He followed the model of Pope, just passing out of favour, 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 favourite 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 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. The essay by Krause (translated) and the prefixed life by Charles Darwin give a full appreciation of the older theory and its points of approximation to the later.
Darwin had three sons by his first wife. Charles, the eldest (3 Sept. 1758–15 May 1778), gave the highest promise, studied medicine at Edinburgh, received a gold medal from the Æsculapian Society for an investigation, and died from a wound received in dissecting. Erasmus (b. 1759) became a solicitor in Lichfield and committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity, 30 Dec. 1799. The third son, Robert Waring (b. 1766), became a physician at Shrewsbury and acquired a large practice. He became F.R.S. in 1788, and was the father of Charles Robert Darwin. He died on 13 Nov. 1848. By his second wife Darwin had four sons and three daughters. His eldest daughter, Violetta, married S. Tertius Galton and was the mother of Mr. Francis Galton, who has erected a monument to his grandfather in Lichfield Cathedral.
[Erasmus Darwin, by Ernst Krause, translated by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin, 1879, gives the fullest account. See also Anna Seward's Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin, 1804; Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth,; Miss Seward's Letters; Life of Mrs. Schimmelpenninck (1879), pp. 120–128, 195–208; Monthly Magazine for June 1802, pp. 457–62, and September 1802, p. 115; John
