REVIEWS. 67 



Irrelevant matter introduced in all places. Not content with the clear de- 

 finition of the only principles on which a Christian man should enter on 

 these studies, which renders the preface so pleasing, where such comments 

 are thoroughly in place, Mr. Morris profusely scatters minor prefaces, frag- 

 ments of " improvements," over every page of the work, sometimes, as at 

 pp. 116, 117, at a great length. What he says is very true, very good, 

 but very commonplace, the " garden whites" of moralizing, and, in almost 

 every instance, would be equally appropriate anywhere else; the interference 

 with the matter in hand is conspicuous and offensive, and exceedingly un- 

 called for. It is true he defends himself by saying, that " moralizing is 

 never out of place" (which we devoutly hope may never pass into an 

 axiom) ; but the only good point in the defence is, that it shows that his 

 conscience is a little uneasy. Such inopportune " reflections, 1 ' where they 

 have no connection whatever with the subject, do the holy cause he would 

 further far more harm than good ; his readers are fretted at the interruption 

 of the " history" of some butterfly for the sake of introducing a sentiment 

 which would be as much to the point in the " History" of any other but- 

 terfly from P. machaon to Cyelopides painscus, or in any book of natural 

 history, or science, or history, or biography, or travels, or good storybook, 

 or anywhere else. All such things are, we believe, much better confined 

 to the preface, which is an introduction to the subject treated of in the 

 book ; when we enter on the book itself we want information about butter- 

 flies, not sermonettes, however good in themselves. But this is not all ; 

 Mr. Morris is as discursive as one of his own butterflies ; he gives us an 

 account of some of his friends' notices of his Oxford life, extracts from the 

 University Calendar, thoughts on the introduction of railway travelling, and 

 scraps of Mrs. Norton's songs ; he touches on the pleasures of angling, and 

 says, that to catch a rare butterfly is as great a treat in its way as to catch 

 a trout of three pounds weight, &c., which last effusion, by the way, is an 

 introduction to the common ringlet. He even takes the trouble to assure 

 us that Captain Blomer is no relation of Mrs. Bloomer, which a moderate 

 study of orthography would have suggested to any one, to say nothing of 

 the bad taste of such a remark. These ghostly pleasantries are abundant 

 throughout the work, and, amongst them all, religious observations are led 

 up and down in a fashion that strongly reminds us of poor Christian and 

 Faithful, in Vanity Fair. Thus a great deal of time, paper, and patience, 

 is mercilessly wasted, which would have been far better employed in im- 

 parting some slight information about the leading characteristics of the 

 different families and genera. Mr. Morris will, we hope, forgive these re- 

 marks, which may be strong, because we feel strongly the greatness of the 



