Part 15

The poem of The Deserted Village took its origin from the circumstance of General Robert Napper (the grandfather of the gentleman who now lives in the house within half a mile of Lissoy, and built by the General), having purchased an extensive tract of the country surrounding Lissoy, or _Auburn_; in consequence of which, many families, here called _cottiers_, were removed to make room for the intended improvements of what was now to become the wide domain of a rich man, warm with the idea of changing the face of his new acquisition; and were forced "_with fainting steps_," to go in search of "_torrid tracts_" and "_distant climes_."

This fact alone might be sufficient to establish the seat of the poem; but there cannot remain a doubt in any unprejudiced mind, when the following are added; viz. that the character of the village-preacher, the above-named Henry, (the brother of the poet,) is copied from nature. He is described exactly as he lived; and his "modest mansion" as it existed. Burn, the name of the village-master, and the site of his school-house, and _Catherine Giraghty_, a lonely widow;

The wretched matron forced in age for bread To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread;

(and to this day the brook and ditches, near the spot where her cabin stood, abound with cresses) still remain in the memory of the inhabitants, and _Catherine's_ children live in the neighbourhood. The pool, the busy mill, the house where "_nut-brown draughts inspired_," are still visited as the poetic scene; and the "_hawthorn-bush_" growing in an open space in front of the house, which I knew to have three trunks, is now reduced to one; the other two having been cut, from time to time, by persons carrying away pieces of it to be made into toys, &c. in honour of the bard, and of the celebrity of his poem. All these contribute to the same proof; and the "_decent church_," which I attended for upwards of eighteen years, and which "_tops the neighbouring hill_," is exactly described as seen from Lissoy, the residence of the preacher.

I should have observed, that Elizabeth Delap, who was a parishioner of mine, and died at the age of about ninety, often told me she was the first who put a book into Goldsmith's hand; by which she meant, that she taught him his letters: she was allied to him, and kept a little school.

The Hermit is a pleasing little tale, told with that simplicity which appears so easy, and is in fact so difficult, to be obtained. It was imitated in the Ballad of a Friar of Orders Grey, in Percy's Reliques of English Poetry.

His Traveller was, it is said, pronounced by Mr. Fox to be one of the finest pieces in the English language. Perhaps this sentence was delivered by that great man with some qualification, which was either forgotten or omitted by the reporter of it; otherwise such praise was surely disproportioned to its object.

In this poem, he professes to compare the good and evil which fall to the share of those different nations whose lot he contemplates. His design at setting out is to shew that, whether we consider the blessings to be derived from art or from nature, we shall discover "an equal portion dealt to all mankind." And the conclusion which he draws at the end of the poem would be perfectly just, if these premises were allowed him.

In every government though terrors reign, Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain, How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, Our own felicity we make or find: With secret course, which no loud streams annoy. Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel, To men remote from power but rarely known, Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.

That it matters little or nothing to the happiness of men whether they are governed well or ill, whether they live under fixed and known laws, or at the will of an arbitrary tyrant, is a paradox, the fallacy of which is happily too apparent to need any refutation. Nor is his inference warranted by those particular observations which he makes for the purpose of establishing it. When of Italy he tells us, "that sensual bliss is all this nation knows," how is Italy to be compared either with itself when it was prompted by those "noble aims," of which he speaks, or with that country where he sees

The lords of human kind pass by, Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, By forms unfashion'd, fresh from nature's hand, Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, True to imagined right, above controul; While e'en the peasant learns these rights to scan, And learns to venerate himself as man?

That good is every where balanced by some evil, none will deny. But that no effort of human courage or prudence can make one scale preponderate over the other, and that a decree of fate has fixed them in eternal equipoise, is an opinion which, if it were seriously entertained, must bind men to a tame and spiritless acquiescence in whatever disadvantages or inconveniences they may chance to find themselves involved, and leave to them the exercise of no other public virtue than that of a blind submission.

His poetry is happily better than his argument. He discriminates with much skill the manners of the several countries that pass in review before him; the illustrations, with which he relieves and varies his main subject, are judiciously interspersed; and as he never raises his tone too far beyond his pitch at the first starting, so he seldom sinks much below it. The thought at the beginning appears to have pleased him; for he has repeated it in "the Citizen of the World:"

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravel'd fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

"The further I travel, I feel the pain of separation with stronger force; those ties that bind me to my native country and you are still unbroken. By every remove I only drag a greater length of chain."

To the poetical compositions of Goldsmith, in general, may be applied with justice that temperate commendation which he has given to the works of Parnell in his life of that Poet. "At the end of his course the reader regrets that his way has been so short; he wonders that it gave him so little trouble; and so resolves to go the journey over again." There is much to solace fatigue and even to excite pleasure, but nothing to call forth rapture. We stay to contemplate and enjoy the objects on our road; but we feel that it is on this earth we have been travelling, and that the author is either not willing or not able to raise us above it. No writer in the English language has combined such various excellences as a novelist, a writer of comedies, and a poet.

FOOTNOTES [1] He took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Feb. 27, 1749. _Prior's Life of Goldsmith_, vol. i. p.98. ED. [2] He also helped himself by writing street-ballads. _Prior_, vol. i. p. 75. ED.

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ERASMUS DARWIN.

Erasmus, the seventh child and fourth son of Robert Darwin, Esq. by his wife Elizabeth Hill, was born at Elston, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, on the 12th of December 1731. He was educated at the Grammar school of Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, under the Rev. Mr. Burrows, and from thence sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he had for his tutor Dr. Powell, afterwards Master of the College, to whose learning and goodness, Mason, another of his pupils, has left a testimony in one of his earliest poems.

After proceeding Bachelor in Medicine at Cambridge, Darwin went to Edinburgh, in order to pursue his studies in that science to more advantage. When he had been there long enough to entitle him to the degree of Doctor in Medicine, he quitted Edinburgh, and began his practice at Nottingham, but soon after (in 1756) removed to Lichfield. In the following year he married Mary, daughter of Charles Howard, Esq. a proctor in the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield. He was very soon distinguished for his professional skill. The first case which he treated with so much success as to attract the public notice, was that of a young man of fortune, who, being in a fever, was given over by his ordinary physician, but whom Darwin restored, probably by one of those bold measures from which others would have shrunk, but to which he wisely had recourse whenever a desperate malady called for a desperate cure. His patient, whose name was Inge, was, I believe, the same whom Johnson, in his life of Ambrose Phillips, has termed a gentleman of great eminence in Staffordshire. Part of the wealth that now flowed in upon him, from an extensive and opulent circle, was employed with that liberality which in this country is perhaps oftener exercised by men of his profession than by those of any other.

At Lichfield, he formed an intimacy with several persons, who afterwards rose to much distinction. Of these, the most remarkable were Mr. Edgeworth, whose skill in mechanics made him acceptable to Darwin; Mr. Day, a man remembered to more advantage by his writings, than by the singularities of his conduct; and Anna Seward, the female most eminent in her time for poetical genius. The manner in which the first of these introduced himself shall be told in his own words, as they convey a lively description of Darwin's person and habits of life at this time. "I wrote an account to the Doctor of the reception which his scheme" (for preventing accidents to a carriage in turning) "had met with from the Society of Arts. The Doctor wrote me a very civil answer; and though, as I afterwards found out, he took me for a coach-maker, he invited me to his house: an invitation which I accepted in the ensuing summer. When I arrived at Lichfield, I went to inquire whether the Doctor was at home. I was shewn into a room where I found Mrs. Darwin. I told her my name. She said the Doctor expected me, and that he intended to be at home before night. There were books and prints in the room, of which I took occasion to speak. Mrs. Darwin asked me to drink tea, and I perceived that I owed to my literature the pleasure of passing the evening with this most agreeable woman. We talked and conversed upon various literary subjects till it was dark; when Mrs. Darwin seeming to be surprised that the Doctor had not come home, I offered to take my leave; but she told me that I had been expected for some days, and that a bed had been prepared for me: I heard some orders given to the housemaid, who had destined a different room for my reception from that which her mistress had upon second thoughts appointed. I perceived that the maid examined me attentively, but I could not guess the reason. When supper was nearly finished, a loud rapping at the door announced the Doctor. There was a bustle in the hall, which made Mrs. Darwin get up and go to the door. Upon her exclaiming that they were bringing in a dead man, I went to the hall. I saw some persons, directed by one whom I guessed to be Doctor Darwin, carrying a man who appeared to be motionless. 'He is not dead,' said Doctor Darwin. 'He is only dead drunk. I found him,' continued the Doctor, 'nearly suffocated in a ditch: I had him lifted into my carriage, and brought hither, that we might take care of him to-night.' Candles came; and what was the surprise of the Doctor and of Mrs. Darwin, to find that the person whom he had saved was Mrs. Darwin's brother! who, for the first time in his life, as I was assured, had been intoxicated in this manner, and who would undoubtedly have perished had it not been for Doctor Darwin's humanity. During this scene I had time to survey my new friend, Doctor Darwin. He was a large man, fat, and rather clumsy; but intelligence and benevolence were painted in his countenance: he had a considerable impediment in his speech, a defect which is in general painful to others; but the Doctor repaid his auditors so well for making them wait for his wit or his knowledge, that he seldom found them impatient. When his brother was disposed of, he came to supper, and I thought that he looked at Mrs. Darwin as if he was somewhat surprised when he heard that I had passed the whole evening in her company. After she withdrew, he entered into conversation with me upon the carriage that I had made, and upon the remarks that fell from some members of the Society to whom I had shewn it. I satisfied his curiosity; and having told him that my carriage was in the town, and that he could see it whenever he pleased, we talked upon mechanical subjects, and afterwards on various branches of knowledge, which necessarily produced allusions to classical literature; by these, he discovered that I had received the education of a gentleman. 'Why! I thought,' said the Doctor, 'that you were a coach-maker!' 'That was the reason,' said I, 'that you looked surprised at finding me at supper with Mrs. Darwin. But you see, Doctor, how superior in discernment ladies are even to the most learned gentlemen: I assure you that I had not been in the room five minutes before Mrs. Darwin asked me to tea!'"

These endeavours to improve the construction of carriages were near costing him dear; nor did he desist till he had been several times thrown down, and at last broke the pan of the right knee, which occasioned a slight but incurable lameness. The amiable woman, of whom Mr. Edgeworth has here spoken, died in 1770. Of the five children whom she brought him, two were lost in their infancy. Charles, the eldest of the remaining three, died at Edinburgh, in 1778, of a disease supposed to be communicated by a corpse which he was dissecting, when one of his fingers was slightly wounded. He had obtained a gold medal for pointing out a test by which pus might be distinguished from mucus; and the Essay in which he had stated his discovery was published by his father after his death, together with another treatise, which he left incomplete, on the Retrograde Motions of the Absorbent Vessels of Animal Bodies in some Diseases. Another of his sons, Erasmus, who was a lawyer, in a temporary fit of mental derangement put an end to his existence, in 1799. Robert Waring, a physician, now in high reputation at Shrewsbury, is the only one of these children who survived him.

A few years before he quitted Lichfield, in consequence of a second marriage, he attempted to establish a Botanical Society in that city; but his only associates were the present Sir Brooke Boothby, and a proctor whose name was Jackson. Of this triumvirate, Miss Seward, who knew them well, tells us that Jackson admired Sir Brooke Boothby, and worshipped and aped Dr. Darwin. He became a useful drudge to each in their joint work, the translation of the Linnaean system of vegetation into English from the Latin. His illustrious coadjutors exacted of him fidelity to the sense of their author, and they corrected Jackson's inelegant English, weeding it of its pompous coarseness. Darwin had already conceived the design of turning the Linnaean system into a poem, which, after he had composed it, was long handed about in manuscript; and, I believe, frequently revised and altered with the most sedulous care. The stage on which he has introduced his fancied Queen of Botany, and her attendants from the Rosicrusian world, has the recommendation of being a real spot of ground within a mile of the place he inhabited. A few years ago it retained many traces of the diligence he had bestowed on it, and has probably not yet entirely lost them. Of this work, called the Botanic Garden, which he retained till he thought there was no danger of his medical character suffering from his being known as a poet, he published, in 1789, the second part, containing the Loves of the Plants, first; believing it to be more level to the apprehension of ordinary readers. It soon made its way to an almost universal popularity. With the lovers of poetry, the novelty of the subject, and the high polish, as it was then considered, of the verse, secured it many favourers, and the curiosity of the naturalist was not less gratified by the various information and the fanciful conjectures which abounded in the notes. The first part was given to the public in three years after.

In 1795 and 1796, appeared the two volumes of Zoonomia, or Laws of Organic Life, the produce of long labour and much consideration. What profit a physician may derive from this book I am unable to determine; but I fear that the general reader will too often discover in it a hazardous ingenuity, to which good sense and reason have been sacrificed. When the writer of these pages, who was then his patient, ventured to intimate the sensuality of one part of it to its author, he himself immediately referred to the passage which was likely to have raised the objection; and, on another occasion, as if to counteract this prejudice in the mind of one whose confidence he might be desirous of obtaining, he recommended to him the study of Paley's Moral Philosophy.

In 1781, he married his second wife, the widow of Colonel Pole, of Radburne, near Derby, with whom he appears to have lived as happily as he had done with his first. By her persuasion, he was induced to pass the latter part of his days at Derby. Here his medical practice was not at all lessened; and he had a second family to provide for out of the emolument which it brought him. His other publications were a Tract on Female Education, a slight performance, written for the purpose of recommending a school kept by some ladies, in whose welfare his relation to them gave him a warm interest; and a long book in 1800, on the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening, which he entitled Phytologia.

On Lady Day, 1802, he took possession of an old house, called the Priory, which had belonged to his son Erasmus, and was situated at a short distance from Derby; and on the 17th of the next month, while he was writing to his friend, Mr. Edgeworth, the following letter, he was arrested by the sudden approach of death.

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Priory, near Derby, April 17, 1802.

Dear Edgeworth,--I am glad to find that you still amuse yourself with mechanism, in spite of the troubles of Ireland.

The use of turning aside, or downwards, the claw of a table, I don't see, as it must be reared against a wall, for it will not stand alone. If the use be for carriage, the feet may shut up, like the usual brass feet of a reflecting telescope.

We have all been now removed from Derby about a fortnight, to the Priory, and all of us like our change of situation. We have a pleasant home, a good garden, ponds full of fish, and a pleasing valley somewhat like Shenstone's--deep, umbrageous, and with a talkative stream running down it. Our home is near the top of the valley, well screened by hills from the east and north, and open to the south, where at four miles' distance we see Derby Tower.

Four or more strong springs rise near the house, and have formed the valley, which, like that of Petrarch, may be called Valchiusa, as it begins, or is shut at the situation of the house. I hope you like the description, and hope farther, that yourself or any part of your family will sometime do me the pleasure of a visit.

Pray tell the authoress that the water-nymphs of our valley will be happy to assist her next novel.

My bookseller, Mr. Johnson, will not begin to print the Temple of Nature till the price of paper is fixed by Parliament. I suppose the present duty is paid

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To this imperfect sentence was added on the opposite side by another hand;

Sir,--This family is in the greatest affliction. I am truly grieved to inform you of the death of the invaluable Dr. Darwin. Dr. Darwin got up apparently in good health; about eight o'clock, he rang the library bell. The servant who went, said he appeared fainting. He revived again. Mrs. Darwin was immediately called. The Doctor spoke often, but soon appeared fainting; and died about one o'clock.

Our dear Mrs. Darwin and family are inconsolable: their affliction is great indeed, there being few such husbands or fathers. He will be most deservedly lamented by all who had the honour of being known to him.

I remain, Sir,

Your obedient humble servant,

S.M.

P.S. This letter was begun this morning by Dr. Darwin himself.

The complaint which thus suddenly terminated his life, in his seventy-first year, was the Angina Pectoris.

The Temple of Nature was printed in the year after his death; but the public had either read enough of his writings or were occupied with other things, for little attention was paid to this poetical bequest. That ingenious burlesque of his manner, the Loves of the Triangles, probably contributed to loosen the spell by which he had for a while taken the general ear.

His person is well described by his biographer, Miss Seward, as being above the middle size, his form athletic, and his limbs too heavy for exact proportion; his countenance marked by the traces of a severe small-pox, and, when not animated by social pleasure, rather saturnine than sprightly. In youth his exterior was rendered agreeable by florid health, and a smile that indicated good-humour. His portrait, by Wright of Derby, gives a very exact, but inanimate, representation of his form and features. In justice to the painter, it must be told, that I believe the likeness to have been taken after death.

In his medical practice he was by some accused of empiricism. From this charge, both Miss Seward and Mr. Edgeworth have, I think, justly vindicated him. The former has recorded a project which he suggested, on the supposed authority of some old practitioners, but which he did not execute, for curing one of his consumptive patients by the transfusing of blood from the veins of a person in health. I have been told, that when a mother, who seemed to be in the paroxysm of a delirium, expressed an earnest wish to take her infant into her arms, and her attendants were fearful of indulging her lest she should do some violence to the object of her affection, he desired them to commit it to her without apprehension, and that the result was an immediate abatement of her disorder. This was an instance rather of strong sagacity than of extraordinary boldness; for nothing less than a well-founded confidence in the safety of the experiment could have induced him to hazard it.