Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters. Darwin Charles

1

I have not thought it necessary to indicate all the omissions in the abbreviated letters.

2

See Charles Darwin's biographical sketch of his grandfather, prefixed to Ernst Krause's Erasmus Darwin. (Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, 1878.) Also Miss Meteyard's Life of Josiah Wedgwood.

3

The above passage is, by permission of Messrs. Smith & Elder, taken from my article Charles Darwin, in the Dictionary of National Biography.

4

A Group of Englishmen, by Miss Meteyard, 1871.

5

The late Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's house in Surrey.

6

Kept by Rev. G. Case, minister of the Unitarian Chapel in the High Street. Mrs. Darwin was a Unitarian and attended Mr. Case's chapel, and my father as a little boy went there with his elder sisters. But both he and his brother were christened and intended to belong to the Church of England; and after his early boyhood he seems usually to have gone to church and not to Mr. Case's. It appears (St. James's Gazette, December 15, 1883) that a mural tablet has been erected to his memory in the chapel, which is now known as the "Free Christian Church." – F. D.

7

Rev. W. A. Leighton remembers his bringing a flower to school and saying that his mother had taught him how by looking at the inside of the blossom the name of the plant could be discovered. Mr. Leighton goes on, "This greatly roused my attention and curiosity, and I inquired of him repeatedly how this could be done?" – but his lesson was naturally enough not transmissible. – F. D.

8

His father wisely treated this tendency not by making crimes of the fibs, but by making light of the discoveries. – F. D.

9

The house of his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood, the younger.

10

It is curious that another Shrewsbury boy should have been impressed by this military funeral; Mr. Gretton, in his Memory's Harkback, says that the scene is so strongly impressed on his mind that he could "walk straight to the spot in St. Chad's churchyard where the poor fellow was buried." The soldier was an Inniskilling Dragoon, and the officer in command had been recently wounded at Waterloo, where his corps did good service against the French Cuirassiers.

11

He lodged at Mrs. Mackay's, 11, Lothian Street. What little the records of Edinburgh University can reveal has been published in the Edinburgh Weekly Dispatch, May 22, 1888; and in the St. James's Gazette, February 16, 1888. From the latter journal it appears that he and his brother Erasmus made more use of the library than was usual among the students of their time.

12

I have heard him call to mind the pride he felt at the results of the successful treatment of a whole family with tartar emetic. – F. D.

13

Dr. Coldstream died September 17, 1863; see Crown 16mo. Book Tract. No. 19 of the Religious Tract Society (no date).

14

The society was founded in 1823, and expired about 1848 (Edinburgh Weekly Dispatch, May 22, 1888).

15

Josiah Wedgwood, the son of the founder of the Etruria Works.

16

17

Tenth in the list of January 1831.

18

I gather from some of my father's contemporaries that he has exaggerated the Bacchanalian nature of those parties. – F. D.

19

Rev. C. Whitley, Hon. Canon of Durham, formerly Reader in Natural Philosophy in Durham University.

20

The late John Maurice Herbert, County Court Judge of Cardiff and the Monmouth Circuit.

21

Afterwards Sir H. Thompson, first baronet.

22

The Cambridge Ray Club, which in 1887 attained its fiftieth anniversary, is the direct descendant of these meetings, having been founded to fill the blank caused by the discontinuance, in 1836, of Henslow's Friday evenings. See Professor Babington's pamphlet, The Cambridge Ray Club, 1887.

23

Mr. Jenyns (now Blomefield) described the fish for the Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle; and is author of a long series of papers, chiefly Zoological. In 1887 he printed, for private circulation, an autobiographical sketch, Chapters in my Life, and subsequently some (undated) addenda. The well-known Soame Jenyns was cousin to Mr. Jenyns' father.

24

In connection with this tour my father used to tell a story about Sedgwick: they had started from their inn one morning, and had walked a mile or two, when Sedgwick suddenly stopped, and vowed that he would return, being certain "that damned scoundrel" (the waiter) had not given the chambermaid the sixpence intrusted to him for the purpose. He was ultimately persuaded to give up the project, seeing that there was no reason for suspecting the waiter of perfidy. – F. D.

25

Philosophical Magazine, 1842.

26

Josiah Wedgwood.

27

The Count d'Albanie's claim to Royal descent has been shown to be baaed on a myth. See the Quarterly Review, 1847, vol. lxxxi. p. 83; also Hayward's Biographical and Critical Essays, 1873, vol. ii. p. 201.

28

Read at the meeting held November 16, 1835, and printed in a pamphlet of 31 pp. for distribution among the members of the Society.

29

In Fitzwilliam Street.

30

Geolog. Soc. Proc. ii. 1838, pp. 416-449.

31

1839, pp. 39-82.

32

Geolog. Soc. Proc. iii. 1842.

33

Geolog. Trans. v. 1840.

34

Geolog. Soc. Proc. ii. 1838.

35

Philosophical Magazine, 1842.

36

The slight repetition here observable is accounted for by the notes on Lyell, &c., having been added in April, 1881, a few years after the rest of the Recollections were written. – F. D.

37

A passage referring to X. is here omitted. – F. D.

38

Geological Observations, 2nd Edit. 1876. Coral Reefs, 2nd Edit. 1874

39

Published by the Ray Society.

40

Miss Bird is mistaken, as I learn from Professor Mitsukuri. – F. D.

41

Geolog. Survey Mem., 1846.

42

Between November 1881 and February 1884, 8500 copies were sold. – F. D.

43

The falseness of the published statements on which Mr. Huth relied were pointed out in a slip inserted in all the unsold copies of his book, The Marriage of near Kin. – F. D.