VI PREFACE. 



it remained hopelefs ; an inveftigation of 

 the conftituent excellencies and defects of 

 his magnificent poem, the Botanic Garden ; 

 remarks upon his philofophic profe writ- 

 ings; the characters and talents of thofe 

 who formed the circle of his friends while 

 he refided inLichfield; and the very fingular 

 "and interefting hiftory of one of them, 

 ' well-known in the lettered world, whofe 

 domeftic hiftory, remarkable as it is, has 

 been unaccountably omitted by the gentle- 

 man who wrote his life. 



Dr. Darwin's Letters make no part of 

 thefe Memoirs. Pofleffing few of them 

 myfelf, and thofe perfectly inconfequential, 

 no effort has here been made to obtain 

 them from others. He lived not, like Pope 

 and Swift, Gray arid Johnfon, in exclufive 

 devotion to abftracT; literature. During fuch 

 hours of repofe, compared to his bufy and 

 hurried life, he might have found leifure 

 to pour his imagination and Jiis know- 

 ledge 



