DR. R. W. DARWIN. g 



Robert Waring Darwin married (April i8, 1796) Susannah, 

 the daughter of his father's friend, Josiah Wedgwood, of 

 Etruria, then in her thirty-second year. We have a miniature 

 of her, with a remarkably sweet and happy face, bearing some 

 resemblance to the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds of her 

 father ; a countenance expressive of the gentle and sympathetic 

 nature which Miss Meteyard ascribes to her.* She died July 

 15, 181 7, thirty-two years before her husband, whose death 

 occurred on November 13, 1848. Dr. Darwin lived before 

 his marriage for two or three years on St. John's Hill ; after- 

 wards at the Crescent, where his eldest daughter Marianne 

 was born ; lastly at the " Mount," in the part of Shrewsbury 

 known as Frankwell, where the other children were born. 

 This house was built by Dr. Darwin about 1800, it is now in 

 the possession of Mr. Spencer Phillips, and has undergone 

 but little alteration. It is a large, plain, square, red-brick 

 house, of which the most attractive feature is the pretty 

 green-house, opening out of the morning-room. 



The house is charmingly placed, on the top of a steep bank 

 leading down to the Severn. The terraced bank is traversed 

 by a long walk, leading from end to end, still called ''the 

 Doctor's Walk." At one point in this walk grows a Spanish 

 chestnut, the branches of which bend back parallel to them- 

 selves in a curious manner, and this was Charles Darwin's 

 favourite tree as a boy, where he and his sister Catherine had 

 each their special seat. 



The Doctor took a great pleasure in his garden, planting 

 it with ornamental trees and shrubs, and being especially suc- 

 cessful in fruit-trees ; and this love of plants was, I think, the 

 only taste kindred to natural history which he possessed. Of 

 the ''Mount pigeons," which Miss Meteyard describes as illus- 

 trating Dr. Darwin's natural-history taste, I have not been 

 able to hear from those most capable of knowing. Miss 

 Meteyard's account of him is not quite accurate in a few 

 points. For instance, it is incorrect to describe Dr. Darwin 



« < 



A Group of Englishmen,' by Miss Meteyard, 1871. 



