ZOOLOGICAL REMARKS. 27 



out a professional vocation in France : England slowly 

 follows." 



Such is a hasty sketch of the state of Zoological 

 Science at the beginning of the present century. I need 

 not trouble the reader either with account or description 

 of the mighty seven-league strides we have made since 

 then, not only in Zoology, but in the practical Arts and 

 Sciences generally ; nor need I remind him that, in 

 many respects, our progress has been and is so astonishing 

 that the mind becomes bewildered in the contemplation 

 of the possible achievements of Science in the future ; but, 

 in connection with the subject of this chapter, let us, by 

 the descriptive aid of an able author, glance for a moment 

 at the backwardness of the past century in contrast with 

 the advancement of the present. 



" One of the differences between the eighteenth century 

 culture and the culture of the nineteenth century is the 

 advantage which the latter has of being able to see more 

 deeply into the poetry of common things. And by this we 

 do not mean that sentimental reflectiveness over daisies, 

 primroses, dandelions, and peasant children, which Words- 

 worth found necessary to employ in his endeavours to 

 bring us back to Nature, nor that the eighteenth century 

 was without its interpreters of this kind of poetry. For 

 the eighteenth century had a Cowper, who saw deeply into 

 the poetry of common things, and there were certain 

 Essayists then also who could preserve for us the very at- 

 mosphere in which a simple country gentleman, Sir Roger 

 de Coverley by name, moved and displayed his little pecu- 

 liarities. But in saying that the culture of the nineteenth 

 century has the advantage of being able to see more deeply 

 into the poetry of common things than the culture of the 



