O, friend to peace and virtue, ever flows For thee my silent and unsullied stream, Pure and untainted as thy blameless life! Let no gay converse lead thy steps astray, To mix my chaste wave with immodest wine, Nor with the poisonous cup, which Chemia's hand Deals (fell enchantress!) to the sons of folly! So shall young Health thy daily walks attend, Weave for thy hoary brow the vernal flower Of cheerfulness, and with his nervous arm Arrest th' inexorable scythe of Time. So early, and indeed throughout his whole life, did Dr. Darwin enforce the happy consequences of temperance and sobriety; from his conviction of the pernicious effects of all kinds of intemperance on the youthful constitution. He had an absolute horror of spirits of all sorts, however diluted. Pure water was, throughout the greater part of his temperate life, his favourite beverage. He has been severely censured (no doubt very justly so), for some of his religious prejudices. Old Walter Mapes, the jovial canon of Salisbury, precentor of Lincoln, and arch-deacon of Oxford, in the eleventh century, considered _water_ as fit only for _heretics_. One may again trace his fondness for the rich scenery of nature, when he in 1777 purchased a wild umbrageous valley near Lichfield, with its mossy fountain of the purest water. This spot he fondly cultivated. The botanic skill displayed by him on this spot, did not escape the searching eye of Mr. Loudon, for in p. 807 of his Encyclop. of Gardening, he pays a deserved compliment to him.[94] Miss Seward wrote some lines on this favoured valley, and these are part of them: O! may no ruder step these bowers profane, No midnight wassailers deface the plain; And when the tempests of the wintry day Blow golden autumn's varied leaves away, Winds of the north, restrain your icy gales, Nor chill the bosom of these hallow'd vales.