Thomas Fessenden provides a critique of Dr. Darwin the grandfather of the more famous Charles Darwin, in his poem Terrible Tractoration. Darwin wrote a long poem in which he described how nature replenishes itself. Temple of Nature if read today would cast doubt upon Darwin’s theories and his published works as being nothing more than an outpouring of a family philosophy of a Godless world.
Fessenden quoted liberally from Erasmus Darwin’s work and his comments support the theme that the physicks of the day (1800) preyed upon the public and brought sickness not cures to those that they attempted to treat. This is reinforced by the writing of Oliver Wendell Holmes who quite made the point in his essay on Childbirth Fever(1), or puerperal fever, which was spread by the “caring hands” of doctors and midwives.
Fessenden as Christopher Caustic on Darwin:
“In this department I have dwelt upon the theories of an author, (Dr. Darwin), whose
‘Sweet tetrandrain monogynain strains
Pant for a pistil in botanic pains;
On the luxurious lap of Flora thrown,
On beds of yielding vegetable down;
Raise lust in pinks; and with unhallowed fire
Bid the soft virgin-violet expire;’
and whose writings have a direct tendency to unhinge society, and reduce mankind to a state of nature, by giving a loose to those passions, which of all others require restraint.
It is to me a most surprising, as well as lamentable circumstance, that pure intellect has so little to do with the affairs of mankind.”
pp xxvii
****
“The thought that the moon was derived from the earth was the subject of lines in Dr. Darwin’s poem, Botanic Gardens.
‘Gnomes: how you shriek’d! When through the troubled air,
Roar’d the fierce din of elemental war;
When rose the continents, and sunk the main,
And earth’s huge sphere exploding burst in twain. -
Gnomes! How you gaz’d! When from her wounded side,
Where now the south sea heaves its waste of tide,
Rose on swift wheels the Moon’s refulgent car,
Circling the solar orb, a sister star,
Dimpled with vales with shining hills emboss’d,
And roll’d round earth her airless realms of frost.’
No man can say in this case, -
Parturiunt nontes nascitur ridiculus mus.
The reaction, at the moment of explosion, of that mass of mater which now composes our moon, is the cause of the obliquity of the polar axis to the poles of the ecliptic, according to Dr. Darwin; though Milton says,
‘... Angels turn’d askance
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more:
From the sun’s axle, they with labour push’d
Oblique the centric globe. ...’
Whether an explosion similar to that, so beautifully described by Dr. Darwin, from the north side of the equator, would not set all right, and a new era be announced, which will be, like that of old, when
‘...Spring
Perpetual smil’d on earth with vernal flowers,
Equal in days and nights’ ...
is a problem worth the attention of our modern philosophers. But at any rate, I Dr. Caustic will
positively, try to experiment.”
pp 41
*****
“That Dr. Darwin supposed that the researches of Spallanzani (successful artificial insemination
of dogs, regeneration of tissues by frogs and other cold-blooded animals, and proof of denial of
spontaneous creation) would terminate in some wonderful Lusus Nature, is apparent from what
he has imformed us, Phytologia, pp.119. ‘It is not impossible, as some philosopher has
already supposed, if Spallanzani should continue his experiments, that some beautiful
productions might be generated between the vegetable and animal kingdoms, like the Eastern
fable of the rose and nightingale!!!!!!!!’”
pp 45
****
“Why scream the bats! Why hot the owls!
While Darwin’s midnight bull-dog howls!
A delectable imitation of Dr. Darwin’s delightful pair of lines -
‘Shrill scream the famished bats and shivering owls,
And long and loud the dog of midnight howls.’
To prevent any post obit disputes among those, who may hereafter peruse this sublime passage, I have thought it advisable to designate the species of dog which howls so horribly on this occasion. (To avoid any suggestion of plagiarism)
pp 78
*****
“Folks ought to die just when God pleases;
But most of all the dirty poor,
Who make, quoth Darwin, good manure.
‘There should be no burial places in churches, or church-yards, where the monuments of departed sinners shoulder God’s alter and pollute his holy places with dead men’s bones. But proper burial places should be consecrated out of towns, and divided into two compartments, the earth from one of which, saturated with animal decomposition, should be taken away once in ten or twenty years, for the purposes of agriculture, and sand or clay, or less fertile soil, brought into its place.’ Darwin’s Phytologia, pp. 242.
Then when the Russians, logger-headed,
Were killed by Frenchmen, ever dreaded,
Darwin rejoic’d the filthy creatures
Would serve for stock to make musquitoes,
Besides the advantage of shewing how reverently this great philosopher and philanthropist could speak of religion, I am sure I shall render an essential service to agriculturalist, by adducing the following quotation. I bring it forward the more readily, as I find that the Board of Agriculture have been so negligent of the interest of that noble art, as not yet to have recommended the universal adoption of this measure:
Among other speculations also in the cause of humanity, bequeathed us by this friend of man, are the following, which will prove a great consolation to those who have foolishly supposed that the blood-shed and devastation, produced by war, were circumstances which ought to be lamented.
These remarks are published by Dr. Darwin, as written under his own observations in the manuscript of his book, by a ‘philosofihical friend,’ whom he left in his library. It is supposed, however, that the Doctor wrote them himself. At least the sentiments have his sanction. ‘It consoles me to find, as I contemplate the whole of organized nature, that it is not in the power of any one personage, whether statesman or hero, to produce by his ill employed activity, so much misery as might have been supposed. Thus if a Russian army, in these insane times, after having endured a laborious march of many hundred miles, is destroyed by a French army, in defense of their Republic, what has happened? Forty thousand human creatures, dragged from their homes and connections, cease to exist, and have manured the earth; but the quantity of organized matter, of which they were composed, presently revives in the forms of millions of microscopic animals, vegetables, and insects, and afterwards of quadrupeds and men; the sum of whose happiness is, perhaps, greater than that of the harassed soldiers, by whose destruction they have gained their existence! Is not this a consoling idea to a mind of universal sympathy? I fear you will think me a misanthrope, but I assure you a contrary sensation dwells in my bosom; and though I commiserate the evils of all organized beings, Homo sum, humini nihil a me alienum puto.’ Phytologia p p. 558.
And also urges with propriety,
That war’s no evil in Society;
But has a charming operation,
To check excess of population
‘Superfluous myriads, from the earth,
Are swept by pestilence and dearth;’
Last words of Dr. Darwin,
I take no small credit to myself, for being one of the first to bring into notice the latest and the most sublime of this sublime philosopher’s sublime speculations. The fountain from which this radiant stream of illumination flows is denominated, among booksellers, ‘The Temple of Nature,’
Which drives his philosophic plan on,
As well as blunderbuss, or cannon.
To paint all the writer’s conceptions of the mansion of that old Lady, and her own most singular qualifications, would be a task even beyond the abilities of a Caustic. Mr. Fuseli, however, has painted his conceptions on the occasion, which, in one o f his designs, appear, so far as I can comprehend him, to be simply these: - In his Frontispiece of the Work, he represents one beautiful lady pointing at, or rather fumbling about (somewhat indecently I must confess) a middle or third breast of another beautiful lady, whom I suppose to be Dame Nature;
Than which there’s nothing can be apter
To fill philosophers with rapture.
[Your Worships will excuse my bursting into poetry, for the idea set all my insides into such a Della Cruscan-like ferment, that I should certainly have burst open, had it not thus overflowed]. This third breast I take to be the painter’s emblem of the Discoveries of Dr. Darwin - implying that their existence is as evident as that a woman has three breast, But, not to digress; the Doctor ascertains that,
‘Human progenies, if unrestran’d,
By climate friended, and by food sustain’d
O’er seas and soils prolific hordes would spread
Ere long, and deluge their terraqueous bed.
But war and pestilence, disease and dearth
Sweep the superfluous myriads form the earth.’
Some unphilosophical theorist have foolishly supposed that this sweeping plan of Dr. Darwin, which that philosopher appears to have introduce, lest ‘prolific hordes’ should ‘deluge their terraqueous beds,’ might as well be deferred till a few of the ‘superfluous’ acres on the earth’s surface were reduced to a state of cultivation. I should advise to employ these supernumararies in navigating polar ices within the tropics, as recommended by the Doctor in the ‘ Botanic Garden,’ were I not apprehensive lest I should thereby, in some measure, destroy the operation of Saint Pierre’s Tides.
That, in this worlds’s great slaughter house,
Not only sheep and calves and cows,
But ‘man erect, with thought elate,’
Must ‘duck’ to death his stubborn pate.
More last words of Dr. Darwin.
‘ The brow of man erect, with thought elate,
Ducks to the mandate of resistless fate.’
Temple of Nature, Canto iv.
I have exhibited this couplet at all the assemblages of my poetizing brethren in Grub Street and St. Giles’s not omitting the inhabitants of the ‘Wits corner, at the Chapter Coffee-house, the elevated tenants of the Cider Cellar in Maiden lane, and Col. Hanger’s ‘Knights of the Round Table,’ all of whom agree in acknowledging the elegance and correctness of the metaphor, and that its beauties are so transcendently exquisite, and beyond the ken of mortal eye, as to be perfectly incomprehensible.
That since to ‘die is but to sleep,’
And poor diseas’d are scabby sheep.
‘Long o’er the wrecks of lovely life they weep;
Then pleas’d reflect, ‘to die is but to sleep.’
Temple of Nature, Canto ii.
I suspect that my intimate friend and correspondent Bonaparte, is a full convert to Dr. Darwin’s doctrine of death and its consequences. For, when he declared to Lord Whitworth his determination to invade England, although there were an hundred chances to one in favour of his going to the bottom, he was undoubtedly calculation on a comfortable nap after the fatigues of government.
That none need care a single button
If we should make them all dead mutton.
That death is but a trivial thing,
Because a toadstool, or a king,
Will, after death, be sure to rise
In bats and bed-bugs, fleas and flies.
Besides, they’ll make, when kill’d in fight,
Vast ‘monuments of past delight;’
‘Thus when a monarch or a mushroom dies,
A while extinct the organic matter lies;
But, as a few short hours or years revolve,
Alchemic powers the changing mass dissolve;
Born to new life unnumber’d insects pant, &c.’
Temple of Nature, Canto iv.
It has been a matter of curious inquiry among some of my corresponding garretteers, whether this philosopher himself, in the latter stages of his existence, enjoyed much consolation from reflecting that the ’organic matter’ which entered into his own composition, was about to be employed for the important purpose of giving ‘new life’ to ‘unnumbered insects.’
‘Thus the tall mountains, that emboss the lands,
Huge isles of rock, and continents of sands,
Whose dim extend eludes the inquiring sight,
ARE MIGHTY MONUMENTS OF PAST DELIGHT.’
These ‘monuments of past delight,’ Darwin says,
‘Rose from the wrecks of animal or herb.’
And that to think of is more pleasant,
Than such delight enjoy’d at present.
Then no Darwinian philosopher
His conduct can contrive to gloss over,
And made it with his tenets tally,
Unless he round our standard rally.
And join in strenuous endeavour
The wretches’ thread of fate to sever;
Thus taught by this wondrous sage, I trust the friends of humanity will suppose it best to let the poor, infirm, and decrepid, die off as fast as possible, to ‘manure the earth,’ that the ‘quantity of organized matter of which they were composed, may revive in the forms of millions of microscopic animals, vegetables and insects, make monuments of past delight,’ &c’ Therefore it is to be hoped, that the promoters of the Perkinean Institution will prove as despicable in respect to numbers, as they are deficient in understanding, especially in comprehending the great and glorious truths of modern philosophy.
That having met their final doom,
They may have rest, we - elbow room.”
pp 112 - 122
******
And should you, kind reader, not agree with Dr. Christopher Caustic’s roasting of the good Doctor Erasmus Darwin, he has this final word to say:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Reviewers!
Your are a set of mischief brewers;
A gang of scandalous backbiters,
Who feast on us, poor murder’d writers
.
Now if you dare to throw the gauntlet,
I tell you honestly I shan’t let
Your impudencies, with impunity,
Impose on future on community.
If you dare say that greater wit
Than Doctor Caustic ever writ;
If you dare venture to suggest
His every word is not the best;
If you dare hint that Caustic’s noodle
Is not improv’d from Homer’s model;
If you dare think he has not treble
The inspiration of a Sybil;
If you don’t seem to take delight
In puffing him with all your might;
If you don’t coin for him some proper lies
To circulate through this Metropolis,
To give eclat in this edition
Of his Poetical Petition;
If you don’t sing the same tune o’er
Which he himself has sung before,
‘Ancients and moderns, altogether,
Are but the shadow of a feather,
Compar’d with Caustic, even as
A puff of hydrogenous gas’
He’ll hurl ye to old Davy’s grotto,
As you imagine from his motto.”
pp 180
(1) Medical Essays, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston, 1888
Terrible Tractoration, Thomas Green Fessenden (as Dr. Christopher Caustic), First American Edition from the Second London Edition, revised and corrected by the author with additional notes, Printed for Samuel Stansbury, New-York, 1804. Selections quoting or about Dr. Erasmus Darwin.
****
Joe Wortham’s Home Page , About Joe Wortham , Directory
Questions? Comments? [email protected]