RISE AND PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY. 65 
member that, after all, he has achieved what the 
wisest of mankind can seldom outdo, that is, to con- 
tribute, in their generation, to the advancement of 
knowledge. The works of Dr. Shaw, one of the offi- 
cers of the British Museum, may here be adverted to, 
as he was unquestionably the writer* of nearly all 
the zoological descriptions in White’s Voyage to New 
South Wales, published in 1789. He has been most 
aptly termed a “ laborious compiler and describer ;” + 
habitually purloining from the works of others, and 
copying their figures, in popular periodicals of his 
own; sometimes, although rarely, interspersing them 
with original articles. He had all the precise tech- 
nicality, without any of the judgment, of Linnzus. 
He was, in fact, one of those false disciples of the 
great Swede, who, —looking to the letter, and not 
to the spirit, of the Systema Nature,—brought the 
reputation of his master into unmerited obloquy ; 
while he imagined he was upholding his fame by 
a pertinacious rejection of all improvement. His 
works are scarcely worth enumerating, save as an 
instance of the mis-direction of good abilities, which 
occasionally peeped forth, and of the oblivion which 
will ever attend the writings of those who, for 
temporary fame, bedeck themselves in the borrowed 
plumes of others. Such plagiarists, sooner or later, 
are sure to be detected. We wish that certain 
compilers of the present day, now in the full tide of 
* M. Cuvier erroneously attributes the whole to John Hun- 
ter, the celebrated anatomist ; whereas he merely wrote the 
account of five of the quadrupeds, and these are neither named 
nor scientifically characterised. 
+t Regne Animal, tome iv. p. 156. 
EF ' 
