RECENT NATIONAL ENCOURAGEMENT. 337 



cabinets, although poor in some of the orders, are 

 very rich in others. The funds set apart for the 

 purchase of additions, are, as it is understood, very- 

 scanty ; but the public have began to be liberal in 

 donations, for they see they are taken care of, and 

 they naturally prefer sending them to the British 

 Museum, where their gifts can be viewed gra- 

 tuitously, than giving them to other collections, the 

 managers of which oblige them to pay for seeing 

 their own presents. 



(237.) We must not omit, in this place, to notice 

 two facts of recent occurrence, not so much from 

 any great influence they have in themselves in re- 

 trieving the national character from the stigma of 

 indifference to science, but that every indication, 

 however slight, of an awakened sense to the import- 

 ance of the subject, must be hailed with pleasure. 

 We allude to some of the highest dignitaries of 

 science having had bestowed upon them " the lowest 

 title that is given to the lowest benefactor of the 

 nation, or to the humblest servant of the crown *," 

 and to the circumstance of one thousand pounds 

 having been allotted by government to the execution 

 of the zoological plates accompanying the volumes 

 of the Fauna Americani Boreali; without this grant, 

 indeed, the result of the zoological discoveries made 

 by the Arctic expeditions of Franklin and Richard- 

 son would never have been given to the world. It 

 will ever be an honour attached to the name of 

 Lord Goderich, that he was the first minister of the 



* Quarterly Review, No. 86. 

 Z 



