Physician and natural philosopher, born in Nottinghamshire; studied at Cambridge and Edinburgh; practised medicine in Lichfield, and finally settled in Derby; occupied his mind with the study of fanciful analogies in the different spheres of nature, and committed his views, often not without genuine poetic sentiment and melody of expression, to verse, while in the views themselves there have been recognised occasional glimpses of true insight, and at times a foreshadow of the doctrine developed on strict scientific lines by his illustrious grandson. His chief poetic works were the "Botanic Garden" and the "Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life," deemed, in the philosophy of them, not unworthy of criticism by such sane thinkers as Paley and Dugald Stewart (1731-1802).