38 Mr. Vigors's Sketches in Ornithology/, 



most attractive of all subjects, the windings and variations of the 

 human heart. Natural History affords us an occasional insight 

 into feelings of this nature. Through its means we possess a 

 subject of common iaterest, by which we find ourselves, as it 

 were, on familiar terms with those who are removed from us not 

 merely by time, but by that imposing dignity which time never fails 

 to confer. When our feelings are called forth in admiration of a 

 bird or an insect, which is known to have equally excited the 

 admiration of an Alexander or an Aristotle, we become almost 

 unconscious of the lapse of time, which has separated us from 

 such characters ; we feel ourselves attracted to them by a com- 

 munity of sentiment; and rejoice in that sympathy which brings 

 us in contact with the patron of science and the man of genius of 

 the days that have gone by. Science, it is said, levels all distinc- 

 tions of rank and station, and unites all the adventitious differ- 

 ences in society under the powerful influence of genius and of 

 knowledge : but science goes still farther in the present case, for 

 it appears to level all the distinctions of time and space. In 

 pursuing such researches into antiquity we find not merely that 

 external nature was the same two thousand years ago as it is at 

 present, but that human nature itself has undergone but little 

 variation. I scarcely know a description on which we can dwell 

 with sentiments of more unalloyed satisfaction, — not merely from 

 its intrinsick beauty, but from the exhibition of genuine tender- 

 ness of heart, which is thus proved to be the property of no time 

 or climate, but to be common to all, — than the recognition of his 

 master by the faithful Argus, in the following passage of the 

 *' Odyssey," and the depth of feeling betrayed on the occasion 

 by the '' much-enduring" prince. 



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