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The Executor / Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine vol. LXXXIX cover

The Executor / Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine vol. LXXXIX

Chapter 7: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. A NEW SONG.
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About This Book

A funeral gathering is upended when an unexpectedly worded will names an unknown beneficiary, prompting disbelief, accusations, and family quarrels. An attorney reads the document and declares the deceased mad; the nearest kin hopes to reclaim an anticipated inheritance while suspecting a servant; tensions flare as readers of the will attempt to reconcile its provisions with local knowledge of the deceased. The story traces the social embarrassment, shifting loyalties, and procedural obstacles that follow the revelation, revealing character dynamics, class resentments, and the legal and emotional complexities surrounding inheritance and reputation.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

A NEW SONG.

Have you heard of this question the Doctors among,
Whether all living things from a Monad have sprung?
This has lately been said, and it now shall be sung,
Which nobody can deny.
Not one or two ages sufficed for the feat,
It required a few millions the change to complete;
But now the thing’s done, and it looks rather neat,
Which nobody can deny.
The original Monad, our great-great-grandsire,
To little or nothing at first did aspire;
But at last to have offspring it took a desire,
Which nobody can deny.
This Monad becoming a father or mother,
By budding or bursting, produced such another;
And shortly there followed a sister or brother,
Which nobody can deny.
But Monad no longer designates them well
They’re a cluster of molecules now, or a cell;
But which of the two, Doctors only can tell,
Which nobody can deny.
These beings, increasing, grew buoyant with life,
And each to itself was both husband and wife;
And at first, strange to say, the two lived without strife,
Which nobody can deny.
But such crowding together soon troublesome grew,
And they thought a division of labour would do;
So their sexual system was parted in two,
Which nobody can deny.

The Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection. By Charles Darwin, M.A. 1859.

The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society. A Poem. By Erasmus Darwin, M.D. 1803.