ERASMUS DARWIN THE YOUNGER. 



23 



of his appreciation was not made known first in its posthu- 

 mous expression ; his letters of anxiety nearly thirty years ago, 

 when the frail life which has been prolonged to old age was 

 threatened by serious illness, are still fresh in my memory. 

 The friendship was equally warm with both husband and wife. 

 I remember well a pathetic little remonstrance from her 

 elicited by an avowal from Erasmus Darwin, that he preferred 

 cats to dogs, which she felt a slur on her little ' Nero ; ' and 

 the tones in which she said, ' Oh, but you are fond of dogs ! 

 you are too kind not to be,' spoke of a long vista of small, 

 gracious kindnesses, remembered with a tender gratitude. 

 He was intimate also with a person whose friends, like those 

 of Mr. Carlyle, have not always had cause to congratulate 

 themselves on their place in her gallery, — Harriet Martineau. 

 I have heard him more than once call her a faithful friend, and 

 it always seemed to me a curious tribute to something in the 

 friendship that he alone supplied ; but if she had written of 

 him at all, I believe the mention, in its heartiness of apprecia- 

 tion, would have afforded a rare and curious meeting-point 

 with the other ' Reminiscences,' so like and yet so unlike. It 

 is not possible to transfer the impression of a character ; we 

 can only suggest it by means of some resemblance ; and it is 

 a singular illustration of that irony which checks or directs 

 our sympathies, that in trying to give some notion of the man 

 whom, among those who were not his kindred, Carlyle appears 

 to have most loved, I can say nothing more descriptive than 

 that he seems to me to have had something in common with 

 the man whom Carlyle least appreciated. The society of 

 Erasmus Darwin had, to my mind, much the same charm as 

 the writings of Charles Lamb. There was the same kind of 

 playfulness, the same lightness of touch, the same tenderness, 

 perhaps the same limitations. On another side of his nature, 

 I have often been reminded of him by the quaint, delicate 

 humour, the superficial intolerance, the deep springs of pity, 

 the peculiar mixture of something pathetic with a sort of gay 

 scorn, entirely remote from contempt, which distinguish the 

 Ellesmere of Sir Arthur Helps' earlier dialogues. Perhaps 



