CHARLES DARWIN.* 
CHARLES Darwin died on the 19th of April last, a few 
months after the completion of his seventy-third year ; and on 
the 26th, the mortal remains of the most celebrated man of 
science of the nineteenth century were laid in Westminster 
Abbey, near to those of Newton. 
He was born at Shrewsbury, February 12, 1809, and was 
named Charles Robert Darwin. But the middle appellation 
was omitted from his ordinary signature and from the title- 
pages of the volumes which, within the last twenty-five years, 
have given such great renown to an already distinguished 
name. His grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, — who died 
seven years before his distinguished grandson was born, — 
was one of the most notable and original men of his age ; and 
his father, also a physician, was a person of very marked 
character and ability. His maternal grandfather was Josiah 
Wedgwood, who, beginning as an artisan potter, produced 
the celebrated Wedgwood ware, and became a Fellow of the 
Royal Society and a man of much scientific mark. The im- 
portance of heritability, which is an essential part of Dar- 
winism, would seem to have had a significant illustration in 
the person of its great expounder. He was educated at the 
Shrewsbury Grammar School and at Edinburgh University, 
where, following the example of his grandfather, he studied 
for two sessions, having the medical profession in view, and 
where, at the close of the year 1826, he made his first con- 
tribution to natural history in two papers (one of them on the 
ova of Flustra). Soon finding the medical profession not to 
his liking, he proceeded to the University of Cambridge, 
entering Christ’s College, and took his bachelor’s degree in 
1 Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Science, xvii. 449. 
(1882. ) 
