178 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



"In 1757 he married Miss Howard, of the Close 

 of Lichfield, a blooming and lovely young lady of 

 eighteen. ... Mrs. Darwin's own mind, by nature so 

 well endowed, strengthened and expanded in the friend- 

 ship, conversation, and confidence of so beloved a 

 preceptor. But alas ! upon her too early youth, and 

 too delicate constitution, the frequency of her maternal 

 situation, during the first five years of her marriage, 

 had probably a baneful effect. The potent skill and 

 assiduous cares of "him before whom disease daily 

 vanished from the frame of others, could not expel it 

 radically from that of her he loved. It was, however, 

 kept at bay during thirteen years. 



" Upon the distinguished happiness of those years she 

 spoke with fervour to two intimate female friends in the 

 last week of her existence, which closed at the latter 

 end of the summer 1770. ' Do not weep for my im- 

 pending fate,' said the dying angel with a smile of 

 unaffected cheerfulness. ' In the short term of my life 

 a great deal of happiness has been comprised. The 

 maladies of my frame were peculiar ; those of my head 

 and stomach which no medicine could eradicate, were 

 spasmodic and violent; and required stronger measures 

 to render them supportable while they lasted than my 

 constitution could sustain without injury. The periods 

 of exemption from those pains were frequently of 

 several days' duration, and in my intermissions I felt no 

 indications of malady. Pain taught me the value of 

 ease, and I enjoyed it with a glow of spirit, seldom, 

 perhaps, felt by the habitually healthy. While Dr. 

 Darwin combated and assuaged my disease from time 



