80 A RETROSPECT OF THE LITERATURE 



eight in number, — surprizingly spirited and correct, for the period 

 at which they were executed. The labours of many of their suc- 

 cessors upon the same path, verily dwindle into insignificance in the 

 splendour of these two morningJights of British Ornithology. — 

 Willughby was of Middleton, in the county of Warwick ; and died, 

 at the age of thirty. six, in June, 1672. Never do we pass by the 

 old grey gate, and the moss-grown paling, which skirt the ancient 

 domain of the Lords of Middleton, without paying homage, in the 

 innermost recesses of the spirit, to the elevated character and talents 

 of Francis Willughby and his illustrious friend. Stratford, boasting 

 of her Shakespeare, may awaken the enthusiasm of the child of 

 imagination, and attract to the shrine, sanctified by the relics of her 

 immortal bard, the vagrant foot of the pilgrim of the muses. But 

 the philosopher, and the man of science, will contemplate with feel- 

 ings of veneration, far more deep, and lofty, and imperishable, the 

 old mansion-house at Middleton, as the residence of Willughby, and 

 the asylum of the enlightened, the high-minded, and uncompromis- 

 ing John Ray, in the season of his adversity. His admirable Sy- 

 nopsis of Birds and Fishes {Synopsis Methodica Avium et Pisciiim), 

 an octavo volume, was published, in London, in 1713. Upon any 

 production of this great and good man, — the Linnieus of his country 

 — we should deem it little less than profanation to obtrude a com- 

 ment. 



The first two volumes of Eleazar Albin's History of Birds, came 

 out in 1738 ; and a third, in the form of a Supplement, two years 

 subsequently. They contain, altogether, three hundred and five 

 engravings of birds, for the most part British, and one of the bat^ 

 far more " curiously engraven" than " exactly coloured," by the 

 Author. The descriptions of the different subjects have been largely 

 borrowed from Willughby. The first and second volumes are en- 

 riched with ^' Notes and Observations," by the celebrated Dr. Der- 

 ham, author of two popular publications, respectively entitled Phy. 

 sico- and Astro- Theology ; and superintendant of a posthumous 

 edition of the works of Ray. In the absence of Willughby's, the 

 student will find Albins', even now, an useful book of reference. A 

 plain copy, when it can be procured, is greatly preferable to the co- 

 loured. Edwards' Natural History of Birds, and other rare and 



