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Erasmus Darwin's Model Goose

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Clive Hart
Clive Hart*
Affiliation:
Department of Literature, University of Essex
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Extract

      ‘Soon shall thy arm, Unconquer’d Steam! afar
      Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
      Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
      The flying-chariot through the fields of air.
      — Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above,
      Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move;
      Or warrior-bands alarm the gaping crowd,
      And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud.’
Erasmus Darwin’s ebullient modernisation of a familiar prophecy, included in Part I of The Botanic Garden, was published in 1791. A practically minded and highly inventive man, his imagination had been greatly stirred by the successful flights of the Montgolfier balloons in 1783.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 89 , Issue 881 , January 1985 , pp. 17 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1985 

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References

References and Acknowledgments

1. Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802), The Botanic Garden I (London 1791) 289-96. Brief comments on the artificial goose and on Darwin’s interest in flight have appeared in earlier publications. See especially Desmond, King-Hele, Doctor of Revolution: The Life and Genius of Erasmus Darwin, London 1977, 17, 115-16, 152-53, 203-4, 317.Google Scholar
2. The Botanic Garden II, 1789, (3rd edn 1791) II, 47-54. The poem contains several other references to artificial flight.Google Scholar
3. Downe, Kent: DownHouse,ErasmusDarwinRoom, Commonplace Book of Dr Erasmus Darwin, 33. 1777. Text and figures reproduced by kind permission of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.I am grateful to Philip Titheradge, Custodian of Down House, for allowing me to consult the Commonplace Book and for his assistance with the preparation of photographs, and to Desmond King-Hele, for helpful comments.Google Scholar
4.Commonplace Book, 38.Google Scholar
5. Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso, De motu animalium I, Romae 1680, 285-326 and plates 11-13.Google Scholar
6. Hart, Clive. Burattini’s Flying Dragon, The Aeronautical Journal July 1979, 83,269–73.Google Scholar
7. Hart, Clive. The Dream of Flight: Aeronautics from Classical Times to the Renaissance, London 1972,81–4.Google Scholar
8. Bourne, William. Inventions or Devises. Very Necessary for all Generalles and Captaines, or Leaders of Men, as wel by Sea as by Land, London, (1578), 99.Google Scholar
9. See Hart, , The Dream of Flight, 84-6.Google Scholar