Principiò cœlum, ac terras, campofque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum lunæ, titaniaque aftra,
Spiritus intùs alit, totamque infufa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno fe corpore mifcet.
VIRG. n. vi.

Earth, on whofe lap a thousand nations tread,

And Ocean, brooding his prolific bed,

Night's changeful orb, blue pole, and filvery zones,
Where other worlds encircle other funs,

One mind inhabits, one diffusive Soul

Wields the large limbs, and mingles with the whole.

VOL. I.

THE THIRD EDITION, CORRECTED.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD.

1801.

T. Reney, Printer, Bolt Court, Fleet Street.

HARVARD COLLEGE

LIBRARY

DEDICATION.

To the candid and ingenious Members of the College of Physicians, of the Royal Philofophical Society, of the Two Universities, and to all thofe, who ftudy the Operations of the Mind as a Science, or who practise Medicine as a Profeffion, the fubfequent Work is, with great refpect, infcribed by the

Author.

DERBY, May I, 1794.

A 2

ΤΟ

то

ERASMUS DARWIN,

ON HIS WORK ENTITLED

ZOONOMIA.

By DEWHURST BILSBORROW.

HAIL TO THE BARD! who fung, from Chaos hurl'd
How funs and planets form'd the whirling world;
How sphere on sphere Earth's hidden ftrata bend,
And caves of rock her central fires defend ;
Where gems new-born their twinkling eyes unfold,
And young ores fhoot in arborescent gold.

How the fair Flower, by Zephyr woo'd, unfurls
Its panting leaves, and waves its azure curls;
Or fpreads in gay undrefs its lucid form

To meet the fun, and shuts it to the storm ;
While in green veins impaffion'd eddies move,
And Beauty kindles into life and love.

How the first embryon fibre, fphere, or cube,
Lives in new forms,—a line,—a ring,—a tube;
Closed in the womb with limbs unfinish'd laves,
Sips with rude mouth the falutary waves;
Seeks round its cell the fanguine ftreams, that país,
And drinks with crimson gills the vital gas;
Weaves with foft threads the blue meandering vein,
The heart's red concave, and the filver brain;
Leads the long nerve, expands the impatient fenfe,
And clothes in filken fkin the nafcent Ens.

Erewhile, emerging from its liquid bed,

It lifts in gelid air its nodding head;