6 [310] 



DARWIN AND HUMBOLDT. 



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, afterward 

 Bishop of Lichfield. He was sent to 

 Edinburgh (1825) because it was in- 

 tended 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 

 instruction 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 

 Edinburgh, removed to Christ's Col- 

 lege, Cambridge, with the view of 

 his entering the Church. He took 

 his B.A. in 1831, and his M.A. in 

 1837. There being no Natural Sci- 

 ences 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 exchanged the 

 Professorship of Mineralogy for that 

 of Botany. From the above de- 

 scription 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 enthu- 

 siastically arousing and sagaciously 

 directing the first love and the early 

 study of natural science in the mind 

 of Darwin. No one can be more 

 deeply moved by a sense of this 

 gratitude than was Mr. Darwin him- 

 self. His letters, written to Prof. 

 Henslow during his voyage round 

 the world, overflow with feelings of 

 affection, veneration, and obligation 

 to his accomplished master and 

 dearest friend — feelings which 

 throughout his life he retained with 

 undiminished intensity. As he used 



himself to say, before he knew Prof. 

 Henslow, the only objects of natu- 

 ral history for which he cared were 

 foxes and partridges. But owing to 

 the impulse which he derived from, 

 the field excursions of the Henslow 

 class, he became while at Cambridge 

 an ardent collector, especially in the 

 region of entomology ; and we re- 

 member having heard him observe 

 that the first time he ever saw his 

 own name in print was in connection 

 with the capture of an insect in the 

 fens. 



During one of the excursions 

 Prof. Henslow told him that he had 

 been commissioned (through Prof. 

 Peacock) to offer any competent 

 young naturalist the opportunity of 

 accompanying Captain Fitzroy as a, 

 guest on the surveying voyage of the 

 -Beagle, and that he would strongly 

 urge its acceptance on him. Mr, 

 Darwin had already formed desire 

 to traeel, having been stimulated 

 thereto by reading Humboldt's Per- 

 sonal Narrative; so after a short 

 hesitation on the part of his father, 

 who feared that the voyage might 

 " unsettle " him for the Church, the 

 matter was soon decided, and in De- 

 cember of 1838 the expedition started. 

 During the voyage he suffered greatly 

 from sea-sickness, which, together 

 with the fasting and fatigue incident- 

 al to long excursions over-land, was 

 probably instrumental in producing 

 the dyspepsia to which, during the 

 remainder of his life, he was a victim- 

 Three years after returning from this, 

 voyage of circumnavigation, he mar- 

 ried, and in 1842 settled at Down, in 

 Kent. The work which afterward 

 emanated from that quiet and happy- 

 English home, which continued up to> 

 the day of his death, and which has. 

 been more effectual than any other in 

 making the nineteenth century illus- 

 trious, will form the subject of our 

 subsequent articles. 



