86 On the Study of Natural History. 



of his closet to view Nature in her true garb, and to contem- 

 plate the innumerable ways by which Ckeative Wisdom has 

 provided for the wants, the pleasures, and the protection of 

 *• every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Woods and 

 mountains, plains and valleys, each peopled by their own inha- 

 bitants, afford him never-failing instruction and delight ; — they 

 impart a freshness and interest to his Avritings, which not only 

 stamps them with a permanent value, but renders them interest- 

 ing, if not captivating, to all cultivated minds. There are few 

 who have not perused the " Natural History of Selbourne," a 

 collection of letters on the facts observed by its philosophic 

 author, respecting the animals of his native village *. Mr. White 

 was a country clergyman, who held little intercourse with the 

 world, and was almost unknown to the scientific. In truth, he 

 seems to have given little of his attention to system, and still 

 less to learned societies. Yet, with all these disadvantages 

 against a short-lived popularity, what book, ever published in 

 this country, has rendered Natural History more attractive, or 

 has, in consequence, been more generally read ? We feel inte- 

 rested in the little anecdotes this true philosopher has preserved 

 of every subject that crossed his path ; and almost fancy we 

 hear him narrate the incidents of his evening's walk, while 

 iseated in his own garden hermitage. His style is suited to his 

 subject — easy, chaste, and natural. The absence of system, 

 m point of fact, is the great charm of the book ; and this will 

 give it an interest when most of its learned brethren are con- 

 signed to oblivion. But this is not all. The observations of 

 such a man afford a perpetual source of information to natural- 

 ists of the highest order. In our attempts to grasp the general 

 system of nature, we must thread all those labyrinths by which 

 she passes, with so much subtlety, from one form to another, — 

 from genus to genus, and family to family, — till at last, ascend- 

 ing to the two great types of animal and vegetable life, she 

 blends f them so imperceptibly, that the most philosophic obser- 



♦ The Natural History of Selboiirne. London, 1822. 2 vols. 8vo., the 

 last edition. 



t In the observations of the learned Agard on the red snow, of which 

 my friend Professor Hooker has given an interesting abstract, is the fol- 

 lowing passage : — " Hence it follows, that this substance must be either 

 an alga or an animalcula, between which I know of no limits ; there are 



