DR. ERASMUS DARWIN'S LIFE. 1 75 



even when they were in so slight a degree that strict 

 politeness would rather tolerate than ridicule them. 

 Dr. Darwin seldom failed to present their caricature in 

 jocose but wounding irony. If these ingredients of 

 colloquial despotism were discernible in unworn exist- 

 ence, they increased as it advanced, fed by an ever 

 growing reputation within and without the pale of 

 medicine."* 



I imagine that this portrait is somewhat too harshly 

 drawn. Dr. Darwin's taste for English wines is the 

 worst trait which I have been able to discover in his 

 character. On this head Miss Seward tells us that " he 

 despised the prejudice which deems foreign wines more 

 wholesome than the wines of the country. ' If you must 

 drink wine,' said he, ' let it be home-made.' " " It is 

 well known," she continues, " that Dr. Darwin's influence 

 and example have sobered the county of Derby ; that 

 intemperance in fermented fluid of every species is 

 almost unknown among its gentlemen," t which, if he 

 limited them to cowslip wine, is hardly to be won- 

 dered at. 



Dr. Dowson, quoting Miss Edgeworth, says that 

 Dr. Darwin attributed almost all the diseases of the 

 upper classes to the too great use of fermented liquors. 

 "This opinion he supported in his writings with the 

 force of his eloquence and reason ; and still more in 

 conversation by all those powers of wit, satire, and 

 peculiar humour, which never appeared fully to the 

 public in his works, but which gained him strong 



* Miss Seward's ' Memoirs of Dr. Darwin,' p. 3. 

 t Ibid. 



