of this Magazine, " 325 



foQnded nature of this charge, both as it refers to me, who 

 never wrote the work in question, and as it refers to himself, 

 who was the real, avowed, and well known author. That 

 gentleman has proved, beyond a doubt, the accuracy of his 

 own statements, and the fallacy of the arguments by which 

 Mr. Swainson has endeavoured to irflpugn them. The injus- 

 tice of the accusation having been thus fully established by 

 Mr. Bennett, it remains only for me to advert to its malignity. 

 And is it not. Sir, an outrage upon all common decency, de- 

 serving of the severest language that the indignant feelings of 

 an honourable man can use, that an individual is to be dragged 

 before the public as the author of a work, — even allowing it 

 to be deserving of censure, instead of being, as in the present 

 case, deserving of all praise, — of which work every proof^ 

 every certainty, every publicity was afforded that it w^as written 

 by another ? On the respective cover of every number of 

 that work it has been made known that the descriptions and 

 anecdotes illustrative of the natural history were furnished by 

 Mr. Bennett. In every society where such subjects as zoology, 

 and the novel information occasionally accruing to that science, 

 are wont to be discussed, Mr. Bennett received the credit, and 

 the well founded credit, I will add, of being the author. In 

 an article of your own Journal (Vol. III. p. 201.), written by 

 me, and evidently read, for it has been quoted, by the writer 

 who would despoil Mr. Bennett of his well earned reputation, 

 the work is referred to as Mr. Bennett's, and due praise 

 assigned it. Surely, in the worst of those invectives with 

 which Mr. Swainson would seek to injure one who never 

 wished but to benefit him, he could not venture to accuse that 

 individual of praising the work which he himself had written ! 

 — Nay, Sir, even beyond all this, lest a doubt should exist 

 of this authorship being known to all, I have only to refer 

 to the preface, published in No. x. of the work in question, 

 to which Mr. Bennett's name is subscribed as the sole and 

 responsible author. And here let me pause a moment. — It 

 is worth while to examine the accuracy of the writer, who is 

 so forward to scatter his random shafts upon what he calls 

 the gross mistakes, the looseness of research, and the inac- 

 curacy of observation, of others. At p. 101. of your Journal 

 he has given us the following words : — "If the reader turn 

 ,to No. viii. (the last number, as we are informed, which has 

 been published), he will find," &c. &c. Now, Sir, the 

 voluntary information included in the parenthesis must have 

 some meaning. The writer, I repeat, must have had some 

 object, secret or open, in view, when he furnished his readers 

 with such a gratuitous addition to their knowledge. But 



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