CHARLES DARWIN. To 



hours ! " He believes that he was considered by all his 

 masters and by his father as a very ordinary boy, rather 

 below the common standard in intellect. But even so, 

 his conscientiousness came to the front. " I was not 

 idle," he interjects, " but worked conscientiously at my 

 classics, not using cribs." Darwin asserts also for him- 

 self at this time, "strong and diversified tastes, much 

 zeal for whatever interested me, and a keen pleasure in 

 understanding any complex subject or thing." He " used 

 to sit for hours reading the historical plays of Shake- 

 speare," or "Thomson's Seasons" or "the recently pub- 

 lished poems of Byron and Scott." " I mention this," 

 he says, " because later in life I wholly lost, to my great 

 regret, all pleasure from poetry of any kind, including 

 Shakespeare." The conclusion here is : " As I was doing 

 no good at school, my father wisely took me away at a 

 rather earlier age than usual, and sent me (Oct. 1825) 

 to Edinburgh University with my brother, where I stayed 

 for two years." 



Here, as is easy to be understood, being at medical 

 classes, he at once took to natural history. In this he 

 had the aid of Newhaven fishermen, the countenance of 

 some like-minded students, and the encouragement of 

 some learned societies, to which, though still so young, he 

 even read papers, not without some original observations 

 in them. It is now he mentions having read, as we have 

 seen (p. 5), his grandfather's Zoononiia, " admiring it 

 greatly, but without its producing any effect " on him 

 this a propos of one of his new friends " bursting forth 

 in high admiration of Lamarck." " I listened in silent 

 astonishment," says Mr. Darwin, " and as far as I can 

 judge without any effect on my mind." In the course 

 of the Life and Letters, we have a good deal to hear of 

 Lamarck, but always almost with rejection and contempt 

 on the part of Mr. Darwin. Here, too, it is that Mr. 



