following passage from a favourite book of Dr. Darwin's, (the
System of Nature, by Linnaeus) will well apply to that searching and
penetrating mind, which so strongly possessed him through life.--"How
small a part of the great works of nature is laid open to our eyes, and
how many things are going on in secret which we know nothing of! How
many things are there which this age first was acquainted with! How many
things that we are ignorant of will come to light when all memory of us
shall be no more! for nature does not at once reveal all her secrets. We
are apt to look on ourselves as already admitted into the sanctuary of
her temple; we are still only in the porch." How full of grace, of
tenderness, and passion, is that elegy, which he composed the night he
feared a life he so passionately loved (Mrs. Pole, of Radburn,) was in
imminent danger, and when he dreamed she was dead:

Stretch'd on her sable bier, the grave beside,
A snow-white shroud her breathless bosom bound,
O'er her white brow the _mimic lace_ was tied,
And loves, and virtues, hung their garlands round.

From these cold lips did softest accents flow?
Round that pale mouth did sweetest dimples play?
On this dull cheek the rose of beauty blow,
And those dim eyes diffuse celestial rays?

Did this cold hand unasking want relieve,
Or wake the lyre to every rapturous sound?
How sad, for other's woes, this breast could heave!
How light this heart, for other's transport, bound!

[93] It was at this period of his residence at Lichfield, that the
present writer heard him strongly enforce the cultivation of _papaver
somniferum_. What he may have also enforced to others, may possibly have
given rise to some of those ingenious papers on its cultivation, which
are inserted not only in the Transactions of the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce; in other publications,
but in the first and fifth volumes of the Memoirs of the Caledonian
Horticultural Society. The papers of Mr. Ball and Mr. Jones, on its
cultivation, in the former of these transactions, are particularly
diffuse and valuable. They are fully noticed in Dr. Thornton's "Family
Herbal." The subjoined plate is a copy of that in the title page to
"_Opiologia_, ou traicte concernant le naturel proprietes, vraye
preparation, et seur vsage de l'opium," a favourite volume with Dr.
Darwin, printed at _la Haye_, 1614, 12mo. Dr. Darwin