Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol 1 | Page 6

Erasmus Darwin,
the poet and philosopher.
TABLE OF RELATIONSHIP. (An incomplete list of family
members.)
ROBERT DARWIN of Elston, 1682-1754, had three sons, William
Alvey Darwin, 1726-1783, Robert Waring Darwin, 1724-1816, and
Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802.
William Alvey Darwin, 1726-1783, had a son, William Brown Darwin,
1774- 1841, and a daughter, Anne Darwin.
William Brown Darwin, 1774-1841, had two daughters, Charlotte
Darwin and Sarah Darwin.
Charlotte Darwin married Francis Rhodes, now Francis Darwin of
Creskeld and Elston.
Sarah Darwin married Edward Noel.
Anne Darwin married Samuel Fox and had a son, William Darwin Fox.
ERASMUS DARWIN, 1731-1802, married (1) MARY HOWARD,
1740-1770, with whom he had two sons, Charles Darwin, 1758-1778,
and ROBERT WARING DARWIN, and (2) Eliz. Chandos-Pole,
1747-1832, with whom he had a daughter, Violetta Darwin, and a son,
Francis Sacheverel Darwin.
ROBERT WARING DARWIN, 1767-1848, married SUSANNAH
WEDGWOOD and had a son, CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN, b.
February 12, 1809, d. April 19, 1882.
Violetta Darwin married Samuel Tertius Galton and had a son, Francis
Galton.
Francis Sacheverel Darwin, 1786-1859, had two sons, Reginald Darwin
and Edward Darwin, "High Elms."
The table above shows Charles Darwin's descent from Robert, and his
relationship to some other members of the family, whose names occur
in his correspondence. Among these are included William Darwin Fox,
one of his earliest correspondents, and Francis Galton, with whom he
maintained a warm friendship for many years. Here also occurs the
name of Francis Sacheverel Darwin, who inherited a love of natural
history from Erasmus, and transmitted it to his son Edward Darwin,
author (under the name of "High Elms") of a 'Gamekeeper's Manual'

(4th Edition 1863), which shows keen observation of the habits of
various animals.
It is always interesting to see how far a man's personal characteristics
can be traced in his forefathers. Charles Darwin inherited the tall
stature, but not the bulky figure of Erasmus; but in his features there is
no traceable resemblance to those of his grandfather. Nor, it appears,
had Erasmus the love of exercise and of field-sports, so characteristic
of Charles Darwin as a young man, though he had, like his grandson,
an indomitable love of hard mental work. Benevolence and sympathy
with others, and a great personal charm of manner, were common to the
two. Charles Darwin possessed, in the highest degree, that "vividness
of imagination" of which he speaks as strongly characteristic of
Erasmus, and as leading "to his overpowering tendency to theorise and
generalise." This tendency, in the case of Charles Darwin, was fully
kept in check by the determination to test his theories to the utmost.
Erasmus had a strong love of all kinds of mechanism, for which
Charles Darwin had no taste. Neither had Charles Darwin the literary
temperament which made Erasmus a poet as well as a philosopher. He
writes of Erasmus ('Life of Erasmus Darwin,' page 68.): "Throughout
his letters I have been struck with his indifference to fame, and the
complete absence of all signs of any over- estimation of his own
abilities, or of the success of his works." These, indeed, seem
indications of traits most strikingly prominent in his own character. Yet
we get no evidence in Erasmus of the intense modesty and simplicity
that marked Charles Darwin's whole nature. But by the quick bursts of
anger provoked in Erasmus, at the sight of any inhumanity or injustice,
we are again reminded of him.
On the whole, however, it seems to me that we do not know enough of
the essential personal tone of Erasmus Darwin's character to attempt
more than a superficial comparison; and I am left with an impression
that, in spite of many resemblances, the two men were of a different
type. It has been shown that Miss Seward and Mrs. Schimmelpenninck
have misrepresented Erasmus Darwin's character. (Ibid., pages 77, 79,
etc.) It is, however, extremely probable that the faults which they
exaggerate were to some extent characteristic of the man; and this leads
me to think that Erasmus had a certain acerbity or severity of temper
which did not exist in his grandson.

The sons of Erasmus Darwin inherited in some degree his intellectual
tastes, for Charles Darwin writes of them as follows:
"His eldest son, Charles (born September 3, 1758), was a young man of
extraordinary promise, but died (May 15, 1778) before he was
twenty-one years old, from the effects of a wound received whilst
dissecting the brain of a child. He inherited from his father a strong
taste for various branches of science, for writing verses, and for
mechanics...He also inherited stammering. With the hope of curing him,
his father sent him to France, when about eight years old (1766-'67),
with a private tutor, thinking that if he was not allowed to speak
English for a time, the habit of stammering might be lost;