they lasted, than my constitution could sustain "without injury. The periods of exemption from "those pains were frequently of several days dura❝tion, and in my intermissions I felt no indication "of malady. Pain taught me the value of ease, "and I enjoyed it with a glow of spirit, seldom, perhaps, felt by the habitually healthy. While "Dr. Darwin combated and assuaged my disease "from time to time, his indulgence to all my "wishes, his active desire to see me amused and "happy, proved incessant. His house, as you "know, has ever been the resort of people of science "and merit. If, from my husband's great and "extensive practice, I had much less of his society "than I wished, yet the conversation of his friends, "and of my own, was ever ready to enliven the "hours of his absence. As occasional malady "made me doubly enjoy health, so did those frequent absences give a zest, even to delight, "when I could be indulged with his company. 66 My three boys have ever been docile, and "affectionate.... Children as they are, I could trust "them with important secrets, so sacred do they "hold every promise they make. They scorn "deceit, and falsehood of every kind, and have less "selfishness than generally belongs to childhood.... "Married to another man, I do not suppose I "could have lived a third part of those years, "which I have passed with Dr. Darwin; he has "prolonged my days, and he has blessed them.” Thus died this superior woman, in the bloom of life, sincerely regretted by all, who knew how to value her excellence, and passionately regretted by the selected few, whom she honoured with her personal and confidential friendship. The year after his marriage, Dr. Darwin purchased an old half timbered house in the cathedral vicarage, adding a handsome new front, with venetian windows, and commodious apartments. This front looked towards Beacon street, but had no street annoyance, being separated from it by a narrow, deep dingle, which, when the Doctor purchased the premises, was overgrown with tangled briers and knot-grass. In ancient days it was the receptacle of that water, which moated the Close in a semicircle, the other half being defended by the Minster pool. A fortunate opening, between the opposite houses and this which has been described, gives it a prospect, sufficiently extensive, of pleasant and umbrageous fields. Across the dell, between his house and the street, Dr. Darwin flung a broad bridge of shallow steps with chinese paling, descending from his hall-door to the pavement. The tangled and hollow bottom he cleared away into lawny smoothness, and made a terrace on the bank, which stretched in a line, level with the floor of his apartments, planting the steep declivity with lilacs and rose-bushes; while he screened his terrace passengers, and the summer sun, from the gaze of ......... "By all that higher grew, "Of firm and fragrant leaf. Then swiftly rose "To fence the verdant wall." The last gentleman who purshased this house and its gardens, has destroyed the verdure and plantations of that dell, for the purpose of making a circular coach-road from the street to the halldoor; a sacrifice of beauty to convenience, and one of many proofs, that alteration and improvement are not always synonimous terms. To this rus in urbe, of Darwinian creation, resorted, from its early rising, a knot of philosophic friends, in frequent visitation. The Rev. Mr. Michell, many years deceased. He was skilled in astronomic science, modest and wise. The ingenious Mr. Kier, of West Bromich, then Captain Kier. Mr. Boulton, known and respected wherever mechanic philosophy is understood. Mr. Watt, the celebrated improver of the steam engine. And, above all others in Dr. Darwin's personal regard, the accomplished Dr. Small, of Birmingham, who bore the blush ing honours of his talents and virtues to an untimely grave. About the year 1765, came to Lichfield, from the neighbourhood of Reading, the young and gay philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth, a man of fortune, and recently married to a Miss Ellars of Oxfordshire. The fame of Dr. Darwin's various talents allured Mr. E. to the city they graced. Then scarcely two and twenty, and with an exterior yet more juvenile, he had mathematic science, mechanic ingenuity, and a competent portion of classical learning, with the possession of the modern languages. His address was gracefully spirited, and his conversation eloquent. He danced, he fenced, and winged his arrows with more than philosophic skill; yet did not the consciousness of these lighter endowments abate his ardour in the pursuit of knowledge. After having established a friendship and correspondence with Dr. Darwin, Mr. Edgeworth did not return to Lichfield till the summer of the year 1770. With him, at that period, came the late Mr. Day, of Bear-hill, in Berkshire. These young men had been fellow-students in the university of Oxford. Mr. Day was also attracted by the same celebrated abilities, which, five years before, had drawn his friend into their sphere. He was then twenty-four, in possession of a clear estate, about twelve hundred pounds per annum. Mr. Day looked the philosopher. Powder and fine clothes were, at that time, the appendages of gentlemen. Mr. Day wore not either. He was tall and stooped in the shoulders, full made, but not corpulent; and in his meditative and melancholy air a degree of awkwardness and dignity were blended. We found his features interesting and agreeable amidst the traces of a severe small-pox. There was a sort of weight upon the lids of his large hazle eyes; yet when he declaimed, A. S. JEWETT, M. D. DAYTON, OHIO. ....... "Of good and evil "Passion and apathy, and glory, and shame," very expressive were the energies gleaming from them beneath the shade of sable hair, which, Adam-like, curled about his brows. Less graceful, less amusing, less brilliant than Mr. E. but more highly imaginative, more classical, and a deeper reasoner; strict integrity, energetic friendship, openhanded bounty, sedulous and diffusive charity, greatly overbalanced, on the side of virtue, the tincture of misanthropic gloom and proud contempt of common-life society, that marked the peculiar character, which shall unfold itself on these |