[202] APPENDIX. 



by the enthusiasm of the moment, and anxious to identify himself with the 

 merits of the exhibition, roared out in an ecstasy of delight, " I made the 

 saddles ! I made the saddles ! " With equal enthusiasm, equal ndivetky and 

 nearly equal justice, does Mr. Swainson call out for a participation in the 

 honours due to that mighty and intellectual power, born to instruct and 

 delight this nether world. 



But I must, if possible, be serious. I shall not allow for a moment the 

 insinuations of this wily gentleman to convey the impression that I should 

 ever hazard a word of contempt upon those master spirits of the present 

 or any age, who have worked out for themselves an honourable recom- 

 pense by the labours of the mind. To the principle of achieving independ- 

 ence by such glorious labours I give my most hearty concurrence, not only 

 as consistent with every honourable feeling, but as absolutely necessary in 

 the present state of society to urge men of science to active exertion. It 

 is the abuse of the pinndple alone that I reprobate. I will even go farther. 

 I will maintain that it is not those alone who exchange for their daily sup- 

 port the results of these labours of mind or body which nature has placed 

 at their disposal, that come within the scope of our present observations. 

 The most apparently independent man in the empire, the very landed pro- 

 .prietor who leases out his hereditary domains for a yearly rent, is as sub- 

 ject to the imputation of bartering for money the advantages of his birth, 

 as he that exchanges for a similar recompense the equivalent advantages 

 of nature. But it does not follow, because commerce may exist on a large 

 and liberal scale, because the " merchant princes " of the world, by their 

 zeal, their enterprise, the unbounded magnificence of their labours, may 

 pour down innumerable blessings on their fellow-creatures, in return for 

 the advantages they confer on themselves ; — it does not, therefore, follow, I 

 say, that rapacity and extortion, and sordid feelings and mercenary motives, 

 do not prevail in the inferior grades of commerce. Nay, have not the 

 most atrocious crimes been perpetrated from appetite of gain — from the 

 days of him — the first arch-betrayer — him of the thirty pieces of silver — 

 down to those of the wretched miscreant who has lately expiated upon the 

 scaffold the crime of extinguishing that life which he could not confer, for 

 an equally despicable recompense ? And shall we not conclude, by a simi- 

 lar train of inference, that although, in the higher grades of intellectual 

 commerce, the princely merchants, if I may so call them, of the mind may 

 'continue to instruct and delight mankind without a blot on their fair fame, 

 still the meaner passions of avarice and sordid jealousy may tempt the in- 

 ferior plier of the trade to base and disgraceful subterfuges ; nay, to the 

 breach of all social obligations j to the betrayal of the cause which he pro- 

 fessedly espouses ; to the defamation of his fellow-labourer's name ; to the 

 murder of his reputation j in the paltry hope of monopolising to himself all 

 the pecuniary advantages that may be supposed to accrue from the extinc- 

 tion of a rival ? Again, Sir, I repeat, that it is the abuse of the principle 

 that excites my indignation. Let Mr. Swainson steer clear of this abuse, 

 and his labours will have my warm and unqualified commendation. 



But Mr. Swainson disclaims all such motives, and appears indignant at 

 my pronouncing him to have been " employed " by Dr.- Richardson, and to 

 have received pecuniary recompense for such employment. Your readers. 

 Sir, on turning to my observations on this subject (Vol. IV. p. 333.) 

 ,will perceive that their drift was to the following effect : — Mr. Swain- 

 son accused the Council of the Zoological Society of illiberality, inasmuch 

 as they did not permit him, as he alleges, to consult the contents of their 

 Museum towards the completion of a " national work." I disproved his 

 charges, by showing that he had every facility of consulting the collection, 

 if his own temper had permitted him to profit by the Council's truly liberal 

 compliance with his wishes. I, moreover, carried the war into the enemy's 



