170 



So early, and indeed throughout his whole life, did Dr. 

 Darwin enforce the happy consequences of temperance and 

 sobriety ; from his conviction of the pernicious effects of all 

 kinds of intemperance on the youthful constitution. He had 

 an absolute horror of spirits of all sorts, however diluted. 

 Pure water was, throughout the greater part of his tempe- 

 rate life, his favourite beverage. He has been severely cen- 

 sured (no doubt very justly so), for some of his religious 

 prejudices. Old Walter Mapes, the jovial canon of Salis- 

 bury, precentor of Lincoln, and arch-deacon of Oxford, in 

 the eleventh century, considered water as fit only for here- 

 tics. 



One may again trace his fondness for the rich scenery of 

 nature, when he in 1777 purchased a wild umbrageous val- 

 ley near Lichfield, with its mossy fountain of the purest 

 water. This spot he fondly cultivated. The botanic skill 

 displayed by him on this spot, did not escape the searching 

 eye of Mr. Loudon, for in p. 807 of his Encyclop. of Gar- 

 dening, he pays a deserved compliment to him.* Miss 



* Sterne mentions a traveller who always set out with the spleen and 

 jaundice, — " without one generous connection, or pleasurable anecdote to tell 

 f } — travelling straight on, looking neither to his right hand or his left, lest 

 love or pity should seduce him out of the road." Mr. Loudon seems to be 

 a very different kind of a traveller : for his horticultural spirit and benevo- 

 lent views, pervade almost every page of his late tour through Bavaria. 

 One envies his feelings, too, in another rural excursion, through the roman- 

 tic scenery of Bury, at Mr.; Barclay's, and of Mr. Hope's at Deepdene ; and 

 particularly when he paints his own emotions on viewing the room of sculp- 

 ture there. He even could not, in October last, take his rural ride from 

 Edgware to St. Albans without thus awakening in each traveller a love of 

 o-ardens, and giving this gentle hint to an honest landlord : — " A new inn, 

 in the outskirts of St. Albans, in the Dunstable road, has an ample garden, 

 not made the most of. Such a piece of ground, and a gardener of taste, 

 would give an inn, so situated, so great a superiority, that every one would 

 he tempted to stop there : but the garden of this Boniface, exhibits but the 



