Family Histories. 161 



and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to 

 improve by its own inherent activity, and of deliver- 

 ing down these improvements by generation to its 

 posterity, world without end ? " 



Erasmus Darwin also published a paper on " Fe- 

 male Education in Boarding-Schools." His work, 

 " Zoonomia," was reviewed in 1799 by Thomas 

 Brown, the psychologist, and in 1804 Anna Seward 

 published an account of his life. 



The sons of Erasmus inherited their father's intel- 

 lectual ability Charles, who was born in 1758 and 

 died when just of age, giving promise of high scien- 

 tific attainments. He was engaged in dissecting the 

 brain of a child when he received the wound which 

 caused his death. He was a writer of verse, and the 

 possessor of a rich collection of natural objects, 

 which he made during extensive travels on the con- 

 tinent. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, and 

 received the first gold medal of the ^Esculapian 

 Society for a paper on a medical subject. 



Erasmus, a second son, was also a poet. He was 

 especially interested in coins and statistics, and, when 

 a boy, made a complete and accurate census of the 

 city of Lichfield. Robert Waring Darwin, born 

 May 30, 1766, inherited his father's taste for the 

 medical profession, and went to the University of 

 Leyden, taking his degree of M.D. in February, 

 1785. He proved a very successful physician, secur- 

 ing a large practice even in the very beginning of his 

 career. 



In 1796 he married Susannah Wedgwood, of 

 Etruria, a woman of rare intelligence and great force, 



