e the cause
of the little man, whose nothingness was so ostentatiously displayed by
his lady-wife. Her vanity has had a smart emetic. If it abates the
symptoms, she will have reason to thank her physician who administered
without hope of a fee.'"[148]

"In the spring of 1778 the children of Colonel and Mrs. Pole of Radburn,
in Derbyshire, had been injured by a dangerous quantity of the cicuta,
injudiciously administered to them in the hooping-cough by a physician
of the neighbourhood. Mrs. Pole brought them to the house of Dr. Darwin
in Lichfield, remaining with them there a few weeks, till by his art the
poison was expelled from their constitutions and their health restored.

"Mrs. Pole was then in the full bloom of her youth and beauty. Agreeable
features; the glow of health; a fine form, tall and graceful; playful
sprightliness of manner; a benevolent heart, and maternal affection, in
all its unwearied cares and touching tenderness, contributed to inspire
Dr. Darwin's admiration, and to secure his esteem."[149]

"In the autumn of this year" (1778) "Mrs. Pole of Radburn was taken ill;
her disorder a violent fever. Dr. Darwin was called in, and never
perhaps since the death of Mrs. Darwin, prescribed with such deep
anxiety. Not being requested to continue in the house during the ensuing
night, which he apprehended might prove critical, he passed the
remaining hours till day-dawn beneath a tree opposite her apartment,
watching the passing and repassing lights in the chamber. During the
period in which a life so passionately valued was in danger, he
paraphrased Petrarch's celebrated sonnet, narrating a dream whose
prophecy was accomplished by the death of Laura. It took place the night
on which the vision arose amid his slumber. Dr. Darwin extended the
thought of that sonnet into the following elegy:--

"Dread dream, that, hovering in the midnight air,
Clasp'd with thy dusky wing my aching head,
While to imagination's startled ear
Toll'd the slow bell, for bright Eliza dead.

"Stretched on her sable bier, the grave beside,
A snow-white shroud her breathless bosom bound,
O'er her wan brow the mimic lace was tied,
And loves and virtues hung their garlands round.

"From those 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 day?

"Did t