140 AUGUST. 



apparently trivial objects, and fitness, adaptation and 

 design in all. 



It was remarked by the celebrated Dr. Johnson, on 

 being told that a person whom he knew had destroyed 

 himself, that " he never would have done so had he 

 learnt how to hem a pocket handkerchief." Now to how 

 many of the working men of this country, who now 

 find the little time which they can call their own, after 

 the labours of the day are over, hang heavily on their 

 hands, may this remark apply, many of them listlessly 

 sitting in the chimney-corner with a pipe in their 

 mouths, their thoughts of as little practical worth as 

 the smoke that wreaths round their heads ; some vic- 

 tims to ennui, not knowing how to spend their time or 

 what to do, and many, I grieve to say, spending 

 their time in a more than questionable manner to the 

 profit of the publican and the degradation of them- 

 selves — to how many of this class would the study and 

 contemplation of the works of nature bring happiness 

 and contentment, raising them from the grovelling and 

 debasing tendencies that kind of society into which a 

 working man is usually thrown produces, expanding 

 his intellect, giving him larger and more compre- 

 hensive views of the great plan of creation, and the 

 relations we bear to each other and the world at large j 

 and fostering in him habits of observation and reflec- 

 tion eminently calculated to make him a better citizen 

 and a better man. The habits of order, reflection and 

 energetic industry he will have acquired in the pursuit 

 of Entomology (and indeed by all branches of natural 

 history the same effect will be produced upon the 

 earnest student) will tincture all his actions, and thus 



