76 COSMOS. 



A greater depth of feeling and a fresher spirit of animation 

 pervade the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Bernardin de 

 St. Pierre, and Chateaubriand. If I here allude to the per- 

 suasive eloquence of the first of these writers', as manifested 

 in the picturesque scenes of Clarens and La Meillerie on Lake 

 Leman, it is because, in the principal works of this zealous 

 but ill-instructed plant-collector — which were written twenty 

 y^ears before Buffon's fanciful Epoques de la Nature* — poetic 

 inspiration shows itself principally in the innermost peculiari- 

 ties of the language, breaking forth as fluently in his prose as 

 in the immortal poems of Klopstock, Schiller, Goethe, and 

 Byron. Even where there is no purpose of bringing forward 

 subjects immediately connected with the natural sciences, our 

 pleasure in these studies, when referring to the limited por- 

 tions of the earth best known to us, may be increased by the 

 charm of a poetic mode of representation. 



In recurring to prose writers, we dwell with pleasure on 

 the small work entitled Paul et Virginie, to which Bernardin 

 de St. Pierre owes the fairer portion of his literary reputation. 

 The work to which I allude, which can scarcely be rivaled 

 by any production comprised in the literature of other coun- 

 tries, IS the simple picture of an island in the midst of a trop- 

 ical sea, in which, sometimes favored by the serenity of the 

 sky, and so onetimes threatened by the violent conflict of the 

 elements, two charming creatures stand picturesquely forth 

 from the wild sylvan luxuriance surrounding them as with a 

 variegated flowery tapestry. Here, and in the Cliaumicre In- 

 dienne, and even in his Etudes, de la Nature, which are un- 



* The succession in which the works referred to were published is 

 as follows: Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1759, Nouvelle Heloise; Buffon, 

 Epoques de la Nature, 1778, but his Histoire Naturelle, 1749-1767 ; Ber- 

 nardin de St. Pierre, Etudes as la Nature, 1784, Paul et Virginie, 1788, 

 Chaumiere Indienne, 1791; George Forster, Reise nach der Sudsee 

 1777, Kleine Schriflen, 1794. More than half a century before the 

 publication of the Nouvelle Heloise, Madame de Sevigne, in her charm- 

 ing letters, had already shown a vivid sense of the beauty of nature, 

 such as was rarely expressed in the age of Louis XIV. See the fine 

 natural descriptions in the letters of April 20, May 31, August 15, Sep- 

 tember 10, and November 6, 1671, and October 23 and December 28, 

 1683 (Aubenas, Hist, de Madame de S&vign6, 1842, p. 201 and 427). 

 My reason for referring in the text to the old German poet, Paul Flam- 

 ming, who, from 16o3 to 1639, accompanied Adam Olearius on his 

 journey to Muscovy and to Persia, is that, according to the convincing 

 authority of my fric'.id, Vai'nhagen von Enss {Biographische Denkw., 

 bd. iv., s. A, 75, and 12^), '* the character of Flemming's compositions 

 is marked with a fre"h an<J healthful vigor, while his images of nature 

 are tender 'ind full o'^iife.' 



