SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



them, giving a short sketch of each whom they 

 portray. This will be made more valuable by the 

 addition of sketches from the pictures themselves, 

 by Miss J. Hensman, who has very kindly consented 

 to make them for our pages, and to whom we desire 

 to express our indebtedness. 



The first picture which catches our eyes on 

 entering Room xvii. is the replica of a fine 

 portrait painted for the Linnean Society, at 

 Burlington House, of the late 



Charles Robert Darwin, (1809-1882). 



This portrait is by the Hon. John Collier, a well- 

 known painter who was personally acquainted 

 with Mr. Darwin, as with many other men of 

 science, having married a daughter of the late 

 Professor Huxley. Mr. Darwin is represented as 

 two-thirds length, about life size, dressed in his 

 ■out-door costume of a black cloak, holding in his 

 left hand a soft felt hat, just as he was wont to 

 stroll about his beloved garden at Down. This 

 picture was painted in 1883, from studies taken 

 from life. 



Nowhere has the heredity of ability of mind 

 shown itself more than in the Darwin family. 

 For four generations at least this ability has taken 

 the form of scientific investigation. In 1644, a 

 William Darwin possessed a small estate at 

 Cleatham, and was a yeoman of the armory at 

 Greenwich to James I. and Charles I. His son 

 William, who was born in 1620, served in the 

 Royalist Army, and afterwards became barrister 

 and Recorder of Lincoln. He married the 

 daughter of Erasmus Earle, serjeant-at-law. A 

 third William Darwin, who was eldest son of the 

 Recorder, married Robert Waring's heiress, with 

 Avhom came the manor of Elston which is still in 

 the family. There were two sons, William again 

 being the elder, and Robert the younger, who was 

 educated for the bar ; he had four sons, the eldest 

 of whom, Robert, born in 1731, appears to have 

 first indicated the taste for natural science which 

 was to found the family distinction in later years. 

 The fourth son was Erasmus, to whom we shall 

 have occasion to refer later in these notes. 

 Erasmus became a noted physician of his genera- 

 tion, an accomplished botanist, and a man of great 

 mental vigour. He had three sons, the eldest, 

 Charles, being educated for the medical profession, 

 was a man of the highest promise, but was 

 unfortunately cut off through a wound whilst 

 dissecting. His youngest brother, Robert Waring, 

 born in 1766, became a leading physician at 

 Shrewsbury, was made a F.R.S. in 1788, and was 

 the father of Charles Robert Darwin, F.R.S. , the 

 subject of the portrait under notice. It is hardly 

 good taste to continue this family history to the 

 living members, and it is needless to remind our 



readers that the two sons of the late Charles 

 Darwin are ranked among our leading scientific 

 men, each having again graced the family by 

 becoming at an early age celebrated in their 

 respective departments of scientific investigation 

 and Fellows of the Royal Society. 



The name of Charles Robert Darwin is so fresh 

 in our memories, and his life's work so important 

 and well known, that it would be mere supereroga- 

 tion to here recapitulate it. Suffice it to say that 

 his name will go down to posterity as a philosopher, 

 ranking with Socrates and the greatest thinkers 

 that mankind has ever produced. 



Among other portraits of Darwin extant are a 

 water-colour drawing by G. Richmond ; two in 

 chalk by Samuel L. Lawrence ; a bust (in 1869) by 

 T. Woolner, R.A. ; an oil painting by W. Ouless 

 (1875), with replica at Christ College, Cambridge, 

 which was etched by Rayon ; oil-painting by W. 

 B. Richmond (1879), also at Cambridge ; an etching, 

 by L. Flameng, of Mr. Collier's picture now referred 

 to ; a lithograph in the Ipswich British Association 

 Series ; a medallion in Westminster Abbey, by 

 Joseph Boehm, R.A., and the fine statue by the 

 same sculptor on the staircase of the Natural 

 History Museum, at South Kensington ; there is 

 also a bust of Darwin by Mr Boehm in the National 

 Portrait Gallery ; a plaque by T. Woolner, in 

 Wedgewood ware, is on Darwin's rooms at Christ's 

 College, Cambridge. No portrait, however, of 

 this truly great man can more faithfully depict 

 that beautifully serene expression of one who had 

 attained such profound knowledge, whilst living a 

 life of the greatest simplicity, than that by Collier, 

 in the National Portrait Gallery. 



Michael Faraday (1791-1867). 



The portrait of Michael Faraday, which is 

 also in Room No. xvii., is pleasing and doubt- 

 less life-like. It is of the head and shoulders 

 of the sitting figure and is about two - thirds 

 life size. This picture was painted, in 1842, 

 by Thomas Phillips, R.A., and represents this great 

 natural philosopher as looking young for his fifty 

 years, with dark brown hair and fresh, healthy 

 complexion. In the same room is a marble bust of 

 Faraday by Sir Thomas Brock, A.R.A., presented, 

 in 1886, by Sir F. Pollock, Bart., and the likeness 

 between that piece of sculpture and the picture is 

 unmistakable. 



Michael Faraday was the son of James Faraday, 

 born at Newington Butts, on the Surrey side of 

 the Thames, in London. His father and mother 

 were country folk, of the farming class, from 

 Clapham in Yorkshire, who settled at Newington. 

 They were far from well off in worldly possessions, 

 the husband being a blacksmith. It will be thus 

 better understood that Faraday's genius was 



