PARENTAGE 7 



reverse of an ascetic or of a Quaker. He was 

 grandfather to me by his second wife ; and to Charles 

 R. Darwin (i 809-1882), the great naturalist, by his 

 first wife. His hereditary influence seems to have 

 been very strong. His son Charles, who died at the 

 early age of twenty from a dissection wound, was a 

 medical student of extraordinary promise ; and the 

 medical sagacity of another son, Dr. Robert Darwin 

 of Shrewsbury, the father of Charles R. Darwin, is 

 amply attested. I stayed for a night or two at the 

 house of the latter while I was a boy and too young 

 to form any opinion of him worth recording ; besides, 

 I was rather awe-stricken. 



My grandmother Darwin (1747- 183 2), the second 

 wife of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, was the widow of 

 Colonel E. Sacheverel Chandos-Pole, and, judging 

 from her portrait when young, a lady of remarkable 

 grace and beauty. I saw her in her kindly old age 

 when she lived at the Priory near Derby, but I know 

 little with certainty of her early life and character. 

 She died at the age of eighty-five, her mother at ninety- 

 six. It is perhaps partly through her that the ex- 

 ceptional longevity of my mother and her sons and 

 daughters has been derived. My mother died just 

 short of ninety, my eldest brother at eighty-nine, two 

 sisters, as already mentioned, atninety-three and ninety- 

 seven respectively; my surviving brotheris ninety-three 

 and in good health. My own age is now only eighty- 

 six, but may possibly be prolonged another year or 

 more. I find old age thus far to be a very happy 

 time, on the condition of submitting frankly to its 

 many limitations. 



A half-sister of my mother married Captain, 



