Dr. ERASMUS DARWIN.
1731-1802.
The fame of this once popular poet has been so utterly eclipsed by the philosophical and scientific writings of his grandson, that there is some danger that the author of “The Loves of the Plants” and “The Botanic Garden” may soon be quite forgotten. Fifty years ago the Death of Eliza at the Battle of Minden, taken from “The Loves of the Plants” was a favourite recitation, and was included in every book of Elegant Extracts.
This detached passage is quoted below, together with a modern parody upon it:—
Now stood Eliza on the wood-crown’d height,
O’er Minden’s plains spectatress of the fight;
Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife
Her dearer self, the partner of her life;
From hill to hill the rushing host pursued,
And view’d his banner, or believed she view’d.
Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker tread,
Fast by his hand one lisping boy she led;
And one fair girl amid the loud alarm
Slept on her kerchief, cradled on her arm:
While round her brows bright beams of honour dart,
And love’s warm eddies circle round her heart.
—Near and more near the intrepid beauty press’d,
Saw through the driving smoke his dancing crest,
Heard the exulting shout—“They run!—they run!”
“He’s safe!” she cried, “he’s safe! the battle’s won!”
—A ball now hisses through the airy tides,
(Some Fury wings it, and some Demon guides,)
Parts the fine locks her graceful head that deck,
Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck;
The red stream issuing from her azure veins,
Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains.
—“Ah me!” she cried, and sinking on the ground,
Kiss’d her dear babes, regardless of the wound:
“Oh, cease not yet to beat, thou vital urn,
Wait, gushing life, oh! wait my love’s return!”—
Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far,
The angel, Pity, shuns the walks of war;—
“Oh spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age!
On me, on me,” she cried, “exhaust your rage!”
Then with weak arms, her weeping babes caress’d,
And sighing, hid them in her blood-stain’d vest.
From tent to tent, the impatient warrior flies,
Fear in his heart, and frenzy in his eyes:
Eliza’s name along the camp he calls,
Eliza echoes through the canvas walls;
Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread,
O’er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead,
Vault o’er the plain,—and in the tangled wood,—
Lo! dead Eliza—weltering in her blood!
Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds,
With open arms and sparkling eyes he bounds,
“Speak low,” he cries, and gives his little hand,
“Mamma’s asleep upon the dew-cold sand;
Alas! we both with cold and hunger quake—
Why do you weep! Mamma will soon awake.”
—“She’ll wake no more!” the hopeless mourner cried,
Upturn’d his eyes, and clasp’d his hands, and sigh’d;
Stretch’d on the ground, awhile entranced he lay,
And press’d warm kisses on the lifeless clay;
And then upsprung with wild convulsive start,
And all the father kindled in his heart;
“Oh, Heaven!” he cried, “my first rash vow forgive!
These bind to earth, for these I pray to live.”
Round his chill babes he wrapp’d his crimson vest,
And clasp’d them sobbing, to his aching breast.
From The Loves of the Plants, by Dr. Erasmus Darwin.
Eliza.
Now stood Eliza on the wood-crown’d height
O’er Chobham’s plain, spectatress of the fight;
Sought with proud eye, amid the noisy strife,
Her own John Jenkins, private in the Life
Guards Blue. This day a holyday she’d got,
Telling her Missus (whether true or not,
Who knows?) her grandmother in danger lay
Of death, and might she go out for the day?
From hill to hill the Guards the foe pursued;
She viewed her Jenkins, or believed she viewed;
And in full uniform what female heart
Could look on Jenkins, and not feel Love’s dart?
Near and more near th’ exulting Housemaid press’d.
’Twas Jenkins! What emotions fill’d her breast!
She caught his eye,—then heard a shout, “They run!”
“Now, then,” she cried, “he’ll come—the fight is done!”
One Sergeant Jones approaches now her side,
(Some demon pow’r it is his steps doth guide.)
He smoothes the locks her graceful head that deck,—
Kisses her,—puts his arm about her neck,
And whispers softly in her ear a vow,
Swearing that he will love her then as now.
“Heigho!” she sighs,—then in half-smother’d tones
Consents, and so,—goes off with Sergeant Jones.
* * * * *
From tent to tent the impatient Jenkins flies;—
“Where is Eliza?” he despairing cries.
Eliza’s name through all the camp he calls,—
“Eliza!” echoes through the canvas walls.
Swift gains he the canteen. What horror’s here,
Eliza with the Sergeant drinking beer!
“Eliza false!” the hopeless Jenkins cried,
Upturn’d his eyes, and clasp’d his hands, and sigh’d.
“Have you, then, for a Sergeant, false one, scorn’d
The ‘private’ station I so well adorn’d?
I’ll be revenged.” The false Eliza smiles,—
“There’s not an area to be seen for miles.”
Hopeless, despairing, Jenkins dropp’d one tear;
And then upsprung, and wildly call’d for beer.
* * * * *
That night a whisper through the encampment went,
Jenkins was carried, drunk, unto his tent.
Diogenes, 1853.
But one of the most humorous parodies in the language, which was also founded upon Darwin’s poem, appeared in The Anti-Jacobin, it was entitled
The Loves of the Triangles.
A Mathematical and Philosophical Poem,
Inscribed to Dr. Darwin.
Stay your rude steps, or e’er your feet invade
The Muses’ haunts, ye sons of War and Trade!
Nor you, ye legion fiends of Church and Law,
Pollute these pages with unhallow’d paw!
Debas’d, corrupted, grovelling, and confined,
No Definitions touch your senseless mind;
To you no Postulates prefer their claim,
No ardent Axioms your dull souls inflame;
For you, no Tangents touch, no Angles meet,
No Circles join in osculation sweet!
For me, ye Cissoids, round my temples bend
Your wandering curves; ye Conchoids extend;
Let playful Pendules quick vibration feel,
While silent Cyclois rests upon her wheel;
Let Hydrostatics, simpering as they go,
Lead the light Naiads on fantastic toe;
Let shrill Acoustics tune the tiny lyre;
With Euclid sage fair Algebra conspire;
The obedient pulley strong Mechanics ply,
And wanton Optics roll the melting eye!
But chief, thou Nurse of the Didactic Muse,
Divine Nonsensia, all thy soul infuse;
The charms of Secants and of Tangents tell,
How Loves and Graces in an Angle dwell;
How slow progressive Points protract the Line,
As pendant spiders spin the filmy twine;
How lengthened Lines, impetuous sweeping round,
Spread the wide Plane, and mark its circling bound;
How Planes, their substance, with their motion grown,
Form the huge Cube, the Cylinder, the Cone.
* * * * *
This parody has two drawbacks, in the first place it is much too long to be inserted here in full, in the second place, much of its humour depends on an acquaintance with the original poem, which comparatively few modern readers have. It will be found complete in The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin.
There were several other parodies of Darwin’s Loves of the Plants, such as The Loves of the Colours, and The Loves of the Lowlier Plants, both of which were published about 1824.
——:o:——
Natural Selection.
A Skit on the Darwinian Theory.
I have found out a gift for my fair,
I have found where the cave men are
Laid, Skull femur and pelvis are there,
And spears that of silex they made.
But he ne’er could be true, she averred,
Who would dig up an ancestor’s grave;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such filial regard for the Cave.
My shelves they are furnished with stones,
All sorted and labelled with care,
And a splendid collection of bones,
Each one of them ancient and rare.
One would think she might like to retire
To my study—she calls it a “hole,”
Not a fossil I heard her admire,
But I begged it, or borrowed,—or stole.
But there comes an idea-less lad,
With a strut, and a stare, and a smirk;
And I watch, scientific though sad,
The Law of Selection at work.
Of Science he hasn’t a trace,
He seeks not the How or the Why.
But he sings with an amateur’s grace,
And dances much better than I.
And we know the more modified males
By dance and by song win their wives,
’Tis a law that in “Aves” prevails
And that even in “Homo” survives.
Shall I rage as they twirl in the valse?
Shall I sneer as they carol and coo?
Oh, no! for since Chloe is false
I’m certain that Darwin is true.
From The Modern Apostle, by C. C. W. Naden.
To my Beloved.
Miss, I’m a Pensive Protoplasm,
Born in some pre-historic chasm.
I, and my humble fellow-men
Are hydrogen, and oxygen,
And nitrogen and carbon too,
And so is Jane, and so are you.
In stagnant water swarm our brothers
And sisters, but we’ve many others,
Among them animalculæ,
And lizard’s eggs—and so, you see,
My darling Vesta, show no pride,
Nor turn coquettish head aside,
Our pedigrees, as thus made out,
Are no great things to boast about.
The only comfort seems to be
In this—philosophers agree
That how a Protoplasm’s made
Is mystery outside their trade.
And we are parts, so say the sages,
Of life come down from Long Past Ages.
So let us haste in Hymen’s bands
To join our protoplastic hands,
And spend our gay organic life
As happy man and happy wife.
Shirley Brooks. 1869.
Parody Epitaph on Darwin.
What needs my Darwin for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in pilèd stones?
He, to our wonder and astonishment,
Was hid beneath a grander monument,
And in such pomp doth here sepulchrèd lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die!
From Travels, by “Umbra.” 1865.
