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 ;" f 

 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 Linnaeus. 

 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 Natures, — 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. 



f Regne Animal, tome iv. p. 156. 

 F 



