DR. ERASMUS DARWIN*. 37 



literary productions of his sons, as he calls them, " Mr" 

 Charles and " Dr. R." W." Darwin ; and for this last he 

 bestirs himself to get F.E.S., writing in that reference 

 to the great Josiah Wedgewood the following somewhat 

 knacky letter : " When I want anything to be done 

 (says an old tutor of mine), I look out for a man who 

 does the most business of his own ; for if I can prevail 

 on him to undertake it, it is sure to be done soon and 

 well ! Hence I apply to you." (A Group of Englishmen, 

 p. 253.) I fancy, on the whole, Dr. Darwin always 

 was knacky knacky even with his own overbearing 

 arbitrariness ! 



Dr. Erasmus Darwin had evidently all his life his 

 profession at heart, and never any liking to have its 

 returns interfered with. So it was that he feared poetry 

 might imperil medicine ; and it was only in the year of 

 his marriage with the widow that he allowed the first 

 part of the Botanic Garden to appear. One authority 

 points to this lady's jointure of 600 per annum, as the 

 determining consideration here. He himself made then 

 an annual thousand by his practice, and had at least no 

 occasion to be mercenary, though, doubtless, as said, he 

 was not quite easy about the effect of his poetry. 

 Charles Darwin is somewhat inclined to defend his 

 grandfather in the imputation that has money in regard ; 

 but Dr. Erasmus, really, seems always, on the whole, to 

 have encouraged in himself a very prudent and proper 

 respect for what held of the purse. Referring to 

 Zoonomia, he writes to his son that he thinks of 

 publishing it " in hopes of selling it ; " and we have 

 already seen how concerned he was that Dr. Thomas 

 Brown (not then Dr.) should know how much improved 

 a professional reputation his Zoonomia had brought him. 

 In fact, Dr. Erasmus is always pretty well seen to have 

 had in mind the ordinary forethought that a practice 



