8 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



behind to follow in his wake, still less to throw 

 additional light upon realms which he had but 

 glanced upon. From the decline of Grecian learn- 

 ing until its partial revival among the semi-barbaric 

 Romans, a long interval of darkness intervened ; and 

 it was only after a lapse of nearly 400 years that we 

 find a solitary philosopher — the elder Pliny — call- 

 ing the attention of his countrymen to the wonders 

 of nature, and following up the pursuits of the 

 Grecian sage. The Roman naturalist strove to 

 follow in the path of his great predecessor ; for, 

 like him, he undertook to illuminate the whole em- 

 pire of science and of learning : but he had neither 

 the erudition nor the genius requisite for his gi- 

 gantic project. His voluminous works rather show 

 us a compilation of other men's thoughts and dis- 

 coveries, than a selection of well digested inform- 

 ation, or of original research. We find the wheat 

 intermixed with an abundance of chaff: the nu- 

 tritive grain and the useless straw are equally 

 hoarded, and brought into the garner. Amidst all 

 the polished graces of diction, great and diversified 

 erudition, and no inaptitude for occasionally de- 

 scribing with clearness and precision, we look in 

 vain for the powerful genius and the originality of 

 thought of his great master, and we at once per- 

 ceive that natural history, or rather zoology, under 

 the Romans, had made a retrograde movement. The 

 powerful mind of Aristotle, which led him to reject 

 with disdain the credulous tales and fabulous stories 

 of the age, can nowhere be traced in the writings 

 of Pliny, whose works, on the contrary, abound in 

 fables and in prodigies, at once manifesting that 



