OP BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY. Wi 



Supplement, containing twenty-four accurate but coarse engravings, 

 and fully sustaining the high reputation of its predecessor, followed 

 in 1813. Of the recent Edition of this valuable work, by Professor 

 Rennie, we shall, ere long, have occasion to speak. 



Some time towards the close of the eighteenth century, a work, 

 in three duodecimo volumes, entitled The Natural Histm-tf of Birds, 

 was published in London. It bears, on the title-page, neither the 

 name of the author, nor even, by an unpardonable act of negligence, 

 the date of publication. By the voice of common rumour, it is very 

 confidently stated to be the production of a highly respectable gen- 

 tleman of Birmingham. Whoever he be, the author has no cause 

 to blush for the character of his intellectual progeny. It is really a 

 very creditable performance ; and contains, as promised in the title- 

 page, '^ a variety of facts." Of the '^ one hundred copperplates" 

 with which it is ''illustrated," we are unable to pronounce an 

 equally favourable opinion. Neither the credit of the artist nor the 

 work would, we apprehend, have sustained much injury from their 

 total omission ; and the purse of the author or the publisher, or 

 both, would have been marvellously benefited by it. The two du- 

 odecimo volumes of a very instructive and pleasingly-written Natu^ 

 ral History of Birds, intended chiefly for young persons, by the 

 highly-gifted, poetical, and consequently unfortunate, Mrs. Charlotte 

 Smith, were published, in London, in 1807. 



Of the amusing and not less important British Song-Birds, of 

 Bolton, and British Warblers, of Mr. Sweet, we are unable pre- 

 cisely to specify the dates. Our copy of the former unfortunately 

 lacketh its title-page : and the latter we do not possess. Atkinson's 

 useful Compendium of Ornithology, 8vo., London, was published in 

 1820; Jennings' Ornithologia, a Poem, in two parts, octavo, with 

 copious notes, in 1828. The prose observations of the latter are, in 

 our sober judgment, far more edifying than his wildest poetical 

 flights, — ^his plain and simple notes, more pleasing to our fastidious 

 ear, than his artificial song. Science and Poetry, like certain wor- 

 thy personages of our acquaintance, mightily amiable, edifying, and 

 harmonious, when apart, make, by their ill-sorted union, but a very 

 sorry and discordant couple. The undepraved intellectual appetite 

 instinctively recoils from the incongruous but too fashionable admix- 

 ture of the solid aliments of fact with the sweets of fiction. 



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