228 



LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. 



weak minds of young ladies,"' when in fact it is the development of the object- 

 or that is really contemptible, as being unable to appreciate what may perhaps be 

 regarded as the most ennobling, soul-inspiring and civilizing pursuits that can 

 engage the mind of man — pursuits that have occupied the attention of some of 

 the most gifted and philosophical men of all ages and all countries — that ever 

 have and ever will prove a source of the purest and most thrilling pleasure to 

 thousands of individuals in every part of the world. These pursuits may indeed 

 be stigmatized as useless, contemptible, or pernicious, by those who believe that 

 to gain everlasting happiness hereafter we must be miserable here, or that only 

 those occupations can be advantageous which stimulate and exercise our inferior 

 faculties. With such men we confess we have nothing in common. We enter- 

 tain a loftier idea of the beneficent Creator than to believe that he delights 

 beholding our misery, or that he intended us to deny ourselves the due exercis 

 of any of those faculties which have been assigned to each and all of us, and the 

 enjoyment accruing therefrom. We hold, that whatever tends to minister to 01 

 real happiness in this fleeting world, equally ensures the attainment of that whicl 

 will be enduring. Now the study of the wonderful and endlessly-varied works 

 of Nature, abounding as they everywhere do with proofs of the wisdom and all- 

 prevailing intelligence of the Artificer of the Universe, cannot but tend to improve 

 our minds and add to our happiness both in this spot of earth and in the fa 

 more glorious state of existence in which, by reason of the superiority of 01 

 organization, sickness and sorrow will be alike unknown, when the interests 

 one will be those of all, and when both friends and foes shall meet to part 



With this high aim in view, we object to the term contemptible, as applied tc 

 the study of any part of Nature's works ; and although Mr. Watson, naturally 

 carried away by the ardour of his feelings in the cause of Phrenology, probably 

 intended no disrespect to Natural History, we would rather that the appearance 

 conveyed by his expressions had been avoided, especially as there is no necessity 

 of proving the utility of one branch of knowledge at the expense of the credit 

 another department. 



LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. 



A work entitled the Coleopterist's Manual, containing descriptions of the 

 Lamellicorn insects, has, we understand, lately been published, by the Rev. F. W. 

 Hope. 



We have received a critical notice of Sir W. Jardine's Raptores from a corres- 

 pondent ; but as the work itself has not been forwarded to us, the review must 

 not expect admission to the exclusion of reviews of publications which have beer 

 received. We hope to publish the critique next month. 



