214 GLAUCUS ; OR, 
but simply the best of which the writer knows; let, 
therefore, none feel aggrieved, if, as it may chance, 
opening these pages, they find their books omitted. 
First and foremost, certainly, come Mr. Gosse’s 
books. There is a playful and genial spirit in them, 
a brilliant power of word-painting combined with 
deep and earnest religious feeling, which makes 
them as morally valuable as they are intellectually 
interesting. Since White’s “ History of Selborne,” 
few or no writers on Natural History, save Mr. Gosse, 
Mr. G. H. Lewes, and poor Mr. E. Forbes, have had 
the power of bringing out the human side of science, 
and giving to seemingly dry disquisitions and ani- 
mals of the lowest type, by little touches of pathos 
and humour, that living and personal] interest, to 
bestow which is generally the special function of the 
poet: not that Waterton and Jesse are not excellent 
in this respect, and authors who should be in every 
boy’s library: but they are rather anecdotists than 
systematic or scientific inquirers; while Mr. Gosse, 
in his “ Naturalist on the Shores of Devon,” his 
“Tour in Jamaica,” his “Tenby,” and his “ Canadian 
