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NATURE 



[A/ay 1 8, 1882 



of himself, made a combination as lovable as it was 

 venerable. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that no 

 man ever passed away leaving behind him a greater void 

 of enmity, or a depth of adoring friendship more pro- 

 found. 



But, as we have said, it is impossible to convey in 

 words any adequate conception of a character which in 

 beauty as in grandeur can only, with all sobriety, be 

 called sublime. If the generations are ever to learn, with 

 any approach to accuracy, what Mr. Darwin was, his 

 biographers may best teach them by allowing this most 

 extraordinary man to speak for himself through the 

 medium of his correspondence, as well as through that 

 of his books ; and therefore, as a small foretaste of the 

 complete biography which will some day appear, we 

 shall quote a letter in which he describes the character of 

 his great friend and teacher, the late Prof. Henslow, of 

 Cambridge. We choose this letter to quote from on 

 account of the singular manner in which the writer, while 

 describing the character of another, is unconsciously 

 giving a most accurate description of his own. It is of 

 importance also that in any biographical history of Mr, 

 Darwin, Prof. Henslow's character should be duly consi- 

 dered, seeing that he exerted so great an influence upon 

 the expanding powers of Mr. Darwin's mind. We quote 

 the letter from the Rev. L. Jenyns' Memoir of the late 

 Prof. Henslow. 



" I went to Cambridge early in the year 1828, and soon 

 became acquainted, through some of my brother ento- 

 mologists, with Prof. Henslow, for all who cared for any 

 branch of natural history were equally encouraged by 

 him. Nothing could be more simple, cordial, and unpre- 

 tending than the encouragement which he afforded to all 

 young naturalists. I soon became intimate with him, for 

 he had a remarkable power of making the young feel 

 completely at ease with him, though we were all awe- 

 struck with the amount of his knowledge. Before I saw him, 

 I heard one young man sum up his attainments by simply 

 saying that he knew everything. When I reflect how im- 

 mediately we felt at perfect ease with a man older, and in 

 every way so immensely our superior, I think it was as 

 much owing to the transparent sincerity of his character 

 as to his kindness of heart, and perhaps even still more 

 to a highly remarkable absence in him of all self-con- 

 sciousness. We perceived at once that he never thought 

 of his own varied knowledge or clear intellect, but solely 

 on the subject in hand. Another charm, which must 

 have struck every one, was that his manner to a distin- 

 guished person and to the youngest student was exactly 

 the same : to all the same winning courtesy. He would 

 receive with interest the most trifling observation in any 

 branch of natural history, and however absurd a blunder 

 one might make, he pointed it out so clearly and kindly 

 that one left him in no way disheartened, but only deter- 

 mined to be more accurate the next time. So that no 

 man could be better formed to win the entire confidence 

 of the young and to encourage them in their pursuits. . . . 



" During the years when I associated so much with 

 Prof. Henslow, I never once saw his temper even ruffled. 

 He never took an ill-natured view of any one's character, 

 though very far from blind to the foibles of others. It 

 always struck me that his mind could not be well touched 

 by any paltry feeling of envy, vanity, or jealousy. With 

 all this equability of temper, and remarkable benevolence, 

 there was no insipidity of character. A man must have 

 been blind not to have perceived that beneath this placid 

 exterior there was a vigorous and determined will. When 

 principle came into play, no power on earth could have 

 turned him an hair's breadth. . . . 



" In intellect, as far as I could judge, accurate powers 

 of observation, sound sense, and cautious judgment 

 seemed predominant. Nothing seemed to give him so 

 much enjoyment as drawing conclusions from minute 

 observations. But his admirable memoir on the geology 

 of Anglesea shows his capacity for extended observations 

 and broad views. Reflecting over his character with 

 gratitude and reverence, his moral attributes rise, as they 

 should do in the highest characters, in pre-eminence, over 

 his intellect." 



Charles Robert Darwin was born at Shrewsbury on 

 February 12, 1809. His father was Dr. R. W. Darwin, 

 F.R.S., a physician of eminence, who, as his son used 

 frequently to remark, had a wonderful power of diagnosing 

 diseases, both bodily and mental, by the aid of the fewest 

 possible number of questions ; and his quickness of per- 

 ception was such that he could even divine, in a remark- 

 able manner, what was passing through his patients' 

 minds. That, like his son, he was benevolently inclined, 

 may be inferred from a little anecdote which we once 

 heard Mr. Darwin tell of him while speaking of the 

 curious kinds of pride which are sometimes shown by the 

 poor. For the benefit of the district in which he lived 

 Dr. Darwin offered to dispense medicines gratis to any 

 one who applied and was not able to pay. He was sur- 

 prised to find that very few of the sick poor availed 

 themselves of his offer, and guessing that the reason 

 must have been a dislike to becoming the recipients of 

 charity, he devised a plan to neutralise this feeling. 

 Whenever any poor persons applied for medical aid, he 

 told them that he would supply the medicine, but that 

 they must pay for the bottles. This little distinction 

 made all the difference, and ever afterwards the poor 

 used to flock to the doctor's house for relief as a matter 

 of right. 



Mr. Darwin's mother was a daughter of Josiah Wedg- 

 wood. Little is at present known concerning his early 

 life, and it is questionable whether we can hope to learn 

 much with reference to his boyhood or youth, till the 

 time when he entered at Edinburgh. We can, therefore, 

 only say that he went to Shrewsbury School, the head- 

 master of which was at that time Dr. Butler, afterwards 

 Bishop of Litchfield. He was sent to Edinburgh (1825) 

 because it was intended that he should follow his father's 

 profession, and Edinburgh was then the best medical 

 school in the kingdom. He studied under Prof. Jameson 

 but does not seem to have profited at all by whatever in- 

 struction he received ; for not only did it fail to awaken in 

 him any special love of natural history, but even seems 

 to have had the contrary effect. 



The prospect of being a medical practitioner proving 

 distasteful to him, he was, after two sessions at Edin- 

 burgh, removed to Christ's College, Cambridge, with the 

 view of his entering the Church. He took his B.A. in 

 1S31, and his M.A. in 1837. There being no Natural 

 Sciences Tripos at that time, his degree was an ordinary 

 one. While at Cambridge he attracted the notice of the 

 late Rev. Prof. Henslow, who had just previously ex- 

 changed the Professorship of Mineralogy for that of 

 Botany. From the above description of this man's 

 character and attainments, it is sufficiently evident that 

 he was a worthy teacher of a worthy pupil ; and the 

 world owes an immense debt of gratitude to him for 

 having been the means of enthusiastically arousing and 



