42 Memoirs of Erasmus Dancin, M. D. 



to break the patella of his right knee, which caused, as it 

 always must cause, an incurable' weakness in the fractured 

 part, and a lameness, not very discernible, indeed, when 

 walking on even ground. 



One may here mention, that he was also conspicuous by 

 Laving a horse always to follow his carriage like a dog, pro- 

 perly saddled, and, where the roads were very bad, he would 

 mount on horseback, without boots or spurs, often in co- 

 loured stockings, and thus visit his patient, and return back 

 to his carriage which was waiting lor him. 



Having destined two of his sons for physic, he took him- 

 self unconuTion pains with their education ; and his eldest 

 and darling son, Charles, was sent to Edinburgh as a pro- 

 digy of knowledge. He soon acquired great literary fame 

 from his discovery of the distinction of pus and matter, and 

 the retrograde motion of the absorbents, explanatory of se- 

 veral diseasesi and circumstances in the animal (Economy, 

 when Dr. Dar^vin received the melancholy tidings of his 

 rapid dissolution, though but a few days before in the bloom 

 of health and life, from the scratch of the dissecting-knife 

 in the too eager dissection of a dead and putrid body. 



His hopes were now concentred on Robert, whom he 

 likewise sent 1o Edinburgh, and wno early signalized himself 

 by a paper in the Philosophical Transactions " On the 

 Spectra of Colours," atid whom he settled at Shrewsbury 

 in the bloom of scarcely ripened youth, and who even then 

 acquired the confidence of all, and continues still to possess 

 a very extensive practice and universal esteem. 



His third son, Erasmus, he bred to the law, who, ima- 

 gining that his affairs were perplexed (but which actually 

 was not the case when his debts were collected), became 

 gloomy, and, in a fit of melancholy and despair, plunged 

 into that " bourne whence no traveller returns." 



Dr. Darwin is severely reprobated by some as not having 

 publicly exhibited those outward marks of sorrow for the 

 loss of his two sons which might have been expected : but 

 the reader will remember that his mind was of no ordinary 

 stamp, ajid he probably concealed from the world the real 

 sufferings of a father j for that he was a man of keen sen- 

 1 sibilitv 



