CHAPTER VI. 



DR. ROBERT WARING DARWIN. 



ONE cannot but form a very vivid picture of Mr. 

 Darwin's father, if one will only add to those of the 

 son, the relative words of Miss Meteyard, which occur 

 in her remarkable book, A Group of Englishmen. Mr. 

 Francis Darwin is a little too sensitive, perhaps, as to 

 some of the characteristics recorded there of his grand- 

 father. For Miss Meteyard to say, " Like his father 

 (Erasmus), he (Dr. R W.) was a great feeder," for 

 example, " eating a goose for his dinner, as easily as 

 other men do a partridge " that, it would seem, he 

 (Mr. Francis) is disposed to deny. Those who were 

 intimate with his grandfather, he assures us, " describe 

 him as eating remarkably little, so that he was not a 

 great feeder, eating a goose for his dinner, as easily as 

 other men do a partridge." Otherwise, too, it would 

 appear that Miss Meteyard, in her account of Dr. 

 Darwin, " is not quite accurate." " It is incorrect," for 

 example, " to describe Dr. Darwin as having a philo- 

 sophical mind ; his was a mind especially given to detail, 

 and not to generalising." Again, " in the matter of dress 

 he was conservative, and w r ore to the end of his life 

 knee-breeches and drab gaiters ; which, however, certainly 

 did not, as Miss Meteyard says, button above the knee." 

 Philosophical is a very loose word in English : I fancy 



