16 RIDICULE OF THE SUBJECT. 



With these and similarly confused notions about the origin 

 of Insects and other created beings, their beauties and wonders 

 had, certainly, much less claim upon the notice of the ancients 

 than on ours, who have acknowledged them for the work 

 of one Divine Hand, and regarded them as visible tokens of 

 that Divine Mind of which they are thus permitted to afford 

 us a partial revelation ; but since with incentives comparatively 

 slight, the study of nature in general, and of Insects in 

 particular, was yet deemed by enlightened heathens worthy of 

 infinite attention, is it not strange that the classic robe which 

 has so often lent a dignity to a host of insignificancies, should 

 not at least have defended poor Entomology from neglect or 

 ridicule ? Yet so it has not been. 



On the revival of general learning, there appeared in Europe 

 a few works in which Insects were noticed among other objects 

 of natural history ; but it was not, we believe, till the reign 

 of Charles the First that they obtained in England the honour 

 of a whole Latin book to themselves, and were introduced to 

 the learned public in Mouffet's Theatrum Insectorum. The 

 history of this book is curious, and in a manner correspondent 

 to the ephemeral subjects on which it treats ; for in the suc- 

 cessive authors who began, continued, but never lived to finish 

 it, we are furnished with striking instances of the fragility and 

 uncertainty attendant on the designs and labours of the 

 Insect Man. The foundations of the work were laid by the 

 celebrated Conrad Gesner and Dr. Wootton ; and upon these 



