CHARLES DARWIN. 1 



Charles Darwin died on the 19th of April last, a few 

 months after the completion of his seventy-third year ; and on 

 the 26th, the mortal remains of the most celebrated man of 

 science of the nineteenth century were laid in Westminster 

 Abbey, near to those of Newton. 



He was born at Shrewsbury, February 12, 1809, and was 

 named Charles Robert Darwin. But the middle appellation 

 was omitted from his ordinary signature and from the title- 

 pages of the volumes which, within the last twenty-five years, 

 have given such great renown to an already distinguished 

 name. His grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, — who died 

 seven years before his distinguished grandson was born, — 

 was one of the most notable and original men of his age ; and 

 his father, also a physician, was a person of very marked 

 character and ability. His maternal grandfather was Josiah 

 Wedgwood, who, beginning as an artisan potter, produced 

 the celebrated Wedgwood ware, and became a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society and a man of much scientific mark. The im- 

 portance of heritability, which is an essential part &i Dar- 

 winism, would seem to have had a significant illustration in 

 the person of its great expounder. He was educated at the 

 Shrewsbury Grammar School and at Edinburgh University, 

 where, following the example of his grandfather, he studied 

 for two sessions, having the medical profession in view, and 

 where, at the close of the year 1826, he made his first con- 

 tribution to natural history in two papers (one of them on the 

 ova of Flustra). Soon finding the medical profession not to 

 his liking, he proceeded to the University of Cambridge, 

 entering Christ's College, and took his bachelor's degree in 



1 Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Science, xvii. 449. 

 (1882.) 



