174 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



fever. A physician who had for many years possessed 

 the confidence of Lichfield and the neighbourhood 

 attended, but at length pronounced the case hopeless, 

 and took his leave. Dr. Darwin was then called in, 

 and by ' a reverse and entirely novel kind of treatment ' 

 the patient recovered." * 



Of Dr. Darwin's personal appearance Miss Seward 



" He was somewhat above the middle size ; his form 

 athletic, and inclined to corpulence ; his limbs were too 

 heavy for exact proportion ; the traces of a severe small- 

 pox disfigured features and a countenance which, when 

 they were not animated by social pleasure, were rather 

 saturnine than sprightly ; a stoop in the shoulders, and 

 the then professional appendage a large full-bottomed 

 wig gave at that early period of life an appearance of 

 nearly twice the years he bore. Florid health and the 

 earnest of good humour, a funny smile on entering a 

 room and on first accosting his friends, rendered in his 

 youth that exterior agreeable, to which beauty and 

 symmetry had not been propitious. 



"He stammered extremely, but whatever he said, 

 whether gravely or in jest, was always well worth 

 waiting for, though the inevitable impression it made 

 might not be always pleasant to individual self-love. 

 Conscious of great native elevation above the general 

 standard of intellect, he became early in life sore upon 

 opposition, whether in argument or conduct, and always 

 resented it by sarcasm of very keen edge. Nor was he 

 less impatient of the sallies of egotism and vanity, 

 * ' Sketch, &c., of Erasmus Darwin,' pp. 3, 4. 



