172 



his life in a sprightly letter to a friend), when the fatal signal 

 was given, and a few hours after, on the 18th of April, 

 180.2, and in his sixty-ninth year, he sunk into his chair and 

 expired. " Thus in one hour (says his affectionate bio- 

 grapher) was extinguished that vital light, which the prece- 

 ding hour had shone in flattering brightness, promising du- 

 ration ; (such is often the cunning flattery of nature), that 

 light, which through half a century, had diffused its radi- 

 ance and its warmtli so widely ; that light in which penury 

 had been cheered, in which science had expanded ; to 

 whose orb poetry had brought all her images ; before whose 

 influence disease had continually retreated, and death so 

 often J turned aside his levelled dart!"* That Dr. Dar- 

 win, as to his religious principles or prejudices, displayed 

 great errors of judgment in his Zoonomia, there can be no 

 doubt. An eminent champion of Christianity, truly observed, 

 that Dr. Darwin " was acquainted with more links in the 

 chain of second causes, than had probably been known to 

 any individual, who went before him ; but that he dwelt so 

 much, and so exclusively on second causes, that he too gene- 

 rally seems to have forgotten that there is a first." For 



* Of this celebrate;! biographer of Dr. Darwin (whose Verses to the 

 Memory of Mr. Garrick, and whose Monody on Captain Cook, will live as 

 long as our language is spoken,) Sir W. Scott thus describes his first per- 

 sonal interview with : — " Miss Seward, when young, must have been ex- 

 quisitely beautiful ; for, in advanced age, the regularity of her features, 

 the fire and expression of her countenance, gave her the appearance of 

 beauty, and almost of youth. Her eyes were auburn, of the precise shade 

 and hue of her hair, and possessed great expression. In reciting, or in 

 speaking with animation, they appeared to become darker ; and, as it were, 

 to flash fire. I should have hesitated to state the impression which this 

 peculiarity made upon me at the time, had not my observation been con- 

 firmed by that of the first actress of this or any other age, with whom I 

 lately happened to converse on o\ir deceased friend's expressive powers of 

 countenance." 



