ERASMUS THE YOUNGER. 69 



perfect gentleman,' she at once discerned him to be, and 

 of sound worth and kindliness, in the most unaifected 

 form ! ' Take me now to Oxenden Street, a dyer's shop 

 there ! ' Darwin, without a wrinkle or remark, made for 

 Oxenden Street, and drew up at the required door. 

 Amusingly admirable to us both, when she came home." 

 Carlyle further writes, " Erasmus Darwin came to seek us 

 very soon (' had heard of Carlyle in Germany,' etc.), and 

 continues ever since to be a quiet house -friend, honestly 

 attached, though his visits latterly have been rarer and 

 rarer, health so poor, I so occupied, etc. etc. He had 

 something of original and sarcastically ingenious in him, 

 one of the sincerest, naturally truest, and most modest of 

 men." " Peculiar,'' then, perhaps, was not on the whole 

 a bad epithet almost we might be allowed to say harm- 

 less, or even innocent. Not but that there was geniality 

 and a joke in him. Charles, & propos of his own South 

 American Geology, then just about to appear, said to 

 Erasmus, " You will, of course, read it ; " and Erasmus 

 replied, " Upon my life, I would sooner even buy it ! " 

 Mr. F. Darwin quotes from Carlyle's Reminiscences this of 

 his uncle : " Elder brother of Charles Darwin (the famed 

 Darwin on Species) of these days, to whom I rather 

 prefer him for intellect." The p.issage omitted in the 

 middle of the quotation (indicated by the . . .) runs 

 partly thus : " Omnia, ex, conchis (all from oysters) being 

 a dictum of his (the grandfather), as the present Erasmus 

 once told me, many long years before this of Dctrw'ui on 

 tipecies came up among us ! Wonderful to me as indicat- 

 ing the capricious stupidity of mankind ; never could read 

 a page of it, or waste the least thought upon it." Mr. 

 Francis Darwin directly appends here : " Charles Darwin 

 did not appreciate this sketch of his brother." And we 

 do not wonder at it ! 



