Mudie's Guide to Nature. 63 



on British natural history will experience efficient facilities by 

 the aggregation of such histories. No one can evince more 

 desire to rentier a local history of general interest, and to 

 exhibit the relation which local and individual facts bear to 

 the elucidation of the universal principles of knowledge, than 

 does, in the work before us, the amiable author of The 

 Panorama of Torquay^' ™ iMiinonn< * odT % «»Vs»VsO <ttVxrs\& 



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Mudie, Robert: Guide to the Observation of Nature;'- 12nlo, 

 372 pages. 1832; Whittaker and Co., London; Waugh 

 and Innes, Edinburgh. Vol. lxxvii. of Constable's Mis- 



«t^»' i ffly«1c» iaijo v no ,vjhon iijo gtfmcn plood-sbing zldT 

 This little book is remarkable for the perfect originality of 

 the thoughts, and of many of the » facts ^described inrik. t /tBhe«J 

 author, in his " prefatory notice," expresses the difficulty he 

 has felt in adjudging it a suitable title i^aiid'KftafeffS Slitato 

 " Hints of Inducement to the Observation of Nature" should 

 be taken as the fair interpretation *ofi4ha4^wJifefr hbstfomw} 

 adopted. Those who are already acquainted with The British 

 Naturalist, and the Botanic Annual for 1832, by the same 

 author, will be prepared to expect to find his pages not 

 "sicklied o'er with a pale cast of thought," but replete " with 

 enterprises of much pith and moment;" and we dare assure 

 them that their expectation, in the present case, will not be 

 disappointed. We shall not give space to any analysis' .of' ihe a 

 book; but present an extract from the. ^prefatory* notice,?'; 

 which will well explain its scope and character: — * ■" A man's 

 contemplation of nature is, like his religion, a subject of per* 

 sonal pleasure to himself; and, as is apt to be the case with 

 religion, if he makes too much parade of it before the world, 

 he runs some danger of losing it. Besides, although there are 

 few occupations more pleasant than rational conversations on 

 natural history with friends, especially with young friends, 

 when one can instruct them without appearing to act the 

 schoolmaster, yet still the sweetest hours of a man's converse 

 with nature are those during which he has it all to himself. 

 It is then that the career of thought runs free and far as the 

 light of heaven ; and vanity is subdued, and bitterness is 

 sweetened, and hope is elevated, by the comparisons of one's 

 own little acquirements and cares with the mighty expanse 

 around ; and of the perfect nothingness of this life, in respect 

 to that which then rises clearly and convincingly in the anti- 

 cipation. This is the feeling of natural objects which I have 

 wished to excite and encourage." The author does not strive 

 to effect this by lauding nature, and the scenes and objects 

 of nature. " Mere panegyric," he observes, " does not put 



