HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE. 103 



by their increased attention to cleanliness and ventilation in their persona and 

 houses ; and though last not least, it may be ascribed to improved medical practice. 

 I shall not attempt, in this place, to weigh in the balance the relative claims which 

 each of these causes has to the production of events so pleasing. Yet it may not 

 be amiss to observe, that though honours await those who by brilliant exploits add 

 to the glory of their country, yet the greatest contributor to its political well-being 

 is the man who adds to the health or happiness of the poor, the great mass of 

 the community. It is true that renown and wealth may make a nation great ; but 

 with nations as with individuals, a truer criterion of happiness is to be found in the 

 superior state of health, and length of days of the inhabitants. I do not appeal to 

 the mere increase of population, as indicative of our prosperity, for we see too 

 clearly that in the worst parts of Ireland, the population increases more rapidly 

 than in the places where the people are better off; but if, along with an increase of 

 population we found a general increase in the duration of life, we may safely say of 

 such a community, however unhealthy certain portions of it may be, that, col- 

 lectively, there is a correspondent improvement in health, and a diminution of 

 those causes which militate against longevity." 



Another department of Natural History, and one which is especially 

 attractive to young observers, is that of Zoology, " that science which 

 contemplates the attributes and systematic arrangements of living 

 creatures ;" at the head of which is man himself, who studies all the 

 rest. The zoologist takes a wide survey of animated nature : the wild 

 beasts of the forests, and the docile flocks which furnish food to man, 

 the bird that wings its majestic flight in the highest air, and the feathered 

 tribes which follow man in his social state ; reptiles, insects, and the 

 equivocal creatures which seem to form the boundaries of animal and 

 vegetable life, are all the subjects of his study ; and wherever he may 

 happen to live, this study may be prosecuted. Ardent naturalists experience 

 raptures not less intense, and far more noble, than the hunter who 

 pursues a helpless animal to death for mere exercise. A German has 

 written a folio on the properties of a single insect, and we have known a 

 distinguished entomologist start off in hot haste on hearing of some rare 

 species of insect having been found under a stone among the countless 

 stones of the sea shore, and search till he found it. We missed the 

 company of a pleasant friend one day at Dulwich, and found that he had 

 been led away from the low delights of dinner to revel in the mud of 

 the much abounding ponds of that neighbourhood, in search of some 

 attractive reptile. To some extent every one residing in the country 

 becomes a zoologist. No one can live year after year, and behold the 

 glories of the spring and summer, the fading beauties of the autumn, 

 and the bleak sterility of winter, without noticing some of the changes 

 which these seasons induce in the kind of birds which visit the fields 

 or the gardens. Rude rhymes teach even the child to expect the ** cuckoo 

 in April :" the swallow and the summer come and go together ; and the 

 song of the nightingale, of the blackbird and thrush, even of the 

 pensive robin, which sings its faithful ditty when the gayer friends of 

 summer days have left us, can seldom be addressed to ears utterly 

 unheedful. It seems, indeed, a neglect of our duty to leave young 

 minds insensible to all the voices of nature which suggest lessons of 

 industry, or speak of the Creator. No sooner do the first warm gleams of 

 spring rejoice the earth, than the glad notes of birds awaken the heart 

 of man to joy ; and throughout the summer and the autumn, these little 

 creatures, in admired succession, are busy in every hedge-row, brilliant 

 in plumage, active in building or in bringing up their young, and singing 

 hymns at heaven's gate in the lovely hours of morning, in which man 

 in artificial society is the only living thing that is not awake and abroad, 

 and for whom the birds sing, and the sun shines, and the flowers put 

 forth their beauty in vain. 



