MSS. Commission.
2
“The house is seen,” says Mr. Woodall, “from the line immediately beyond the low tower of St. George’s Church. Visitors who make a pilgrimage there, after crossing the Welsh Bridge, follow the main street until St. George’s Church is passed, and the continuous line of houses ceases. The next carriage drive, on the right, cutting in two a lofty side-walk, is the entrance to The Mount. A short street of new houses, near St. George’s Church, has been called ‘Darwin Street;’ as yet the only public recognition in the town of the greatest of Salopians. A memorial of a more private character has been placed in the Unitarian Chapel, in the form of a tablet bearing the following inscription: – ‘To the memory of Charles Robert Darwin, author of “The Origin of Species,” born in Shrewsbury, February 12th, 1809. In early life a member and constant worshipper in this church. Died April 19th, 1882.’ Mrs. Darwin, we believe, was not strict in her adhesion to the communion in which she had been brought up, but often attended St. Chad’s Church, where Charles and his brother were baptized.”
3
This statement by Darwin disposes of Mr. Grant Allen’s assertion that geology was Darwin’s “first love” (p. 36). He reckoned himself an entomologist when he went to Cambridge, and certainly Mr. Ainsworth’s statement shows that he was a naturalist in a wide sense while at Edinburgh. C. V. Riley, the well-known American entomologist, says (Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, U.S., vol. i., 1882, p. 70) “I have the authority of my late associate editor of
4
Mr. Grant Allen (“Darwin,” p. 42) states that Darwin observed sixty-seven distinct organic forms in the fine dust which fell on deck. It was Ehrenberg who determined these organisms in dust sent to him by Darwin, and four out of five of the packets of dust sent to Ehrenberg were given to Darwin by Lyell (Darwin’s Journal, second edition, p. 5).
5
Mr. John Murray’s views, derived from the experience acquired in the voyage of the
