ALBERTl'S :\IACi\US, BELON, ETC. -40.3 



of letters, — and the hii^licr claims of lii<ijher studies when 

 civility and wealth had begun to diffuse a taste for original 

 compositions, and gave encouragement and leisure to men 

 of science and letters, — were all obliterative of a pursuit 

 which was solely ornamental, and had no attraction except 

 to those chosen few who found in the contemplation of Na- 

 ture's works their principal gratification. That this number 

 was not inconsiderable is certain, for otherwise it seems im- 

 possible to account for the publication of the voluminous 

 and expensively illustrated books on Natural History, which 

 issued from the press within, or shortly after, the first cen- 

 tury after the invention of printing.* And indeed the mo- 

 nastic system, and its institutions, must have been favourable 

 to the growth of such feelings, giving the necessary leisure 

 and seclusion, while nature, presenting daily her works and 

 phenomena, and her seasonal changes to these recluses, dull 

 but not dead to their influence, insensibly operated and gave 

 direction to the employment of their minds. It may be that 

 these earliest works were not devoted even in part to con- 

 chology, but Natural History as one never advances without 

 advantage to every department, and even this minor branch 

 had soon its due share of love and notice. The vast volumes 

 of Albertus Magnus,-f- Belon,| Rondeletius,§ Gesner,|| and 

 Aldrovandus,^ contain each of them books devoted to it; and 

 although the original facts they disclose are very few in pro- 

 portion to the mass heaped up in their folios, yet the criti- 

 cism they have often received as the receptacles of lumber 

 rather than museums of well-arranged records, seems to be 

 unnecessarily harsh and severe. The study of the ancients, 

 and the elucidation of their difficulties, was still a favourite 

 object with men of literature, and when these early natu- 

 ralists betook themselves to the writings which had come 

 down to them, rather than to the observations of things them- 

 selves, they but followed the bent of their compeers and 

 consulted the taste of their age. Their works are laborious 

 compilations, in which everything, however remotely con- 

 nected with the subject in hand, good or bad, true or false, 



* Tliis great discovery was made about tlic year 1440, but it was several 

 years later than this before much use was made of it. Sec Hallam's Lite- 

 rature of Europe, i. 210, &c. 



f His writings "have been collected, in twenty-one volumes folio, by the 

 Dominican Peter Jamnii, and published at Lyons in 1051. After setting aside 

 much that is spurious, Albert may pass for the most fertile writer in the 

 Avorld." — Hai.lam, Intrad. Literature of Europe, i. 159. He was born 

 in 1193, and died in 1280. 



X 1551. § 1554. II 1558. If 1599. 



