M'Murtrie's Translation of the Regne Ammal. 549 



naturalist, a man must be where multitudes congregate, where 

 things that are new and rare in nature, are constantly tending. 

 He must have the most imaginable free access to all these things, 

 whether in public or in private ; and he must be a free man, so 

 far as to be able to command his own time for occasional perso- 

 nal investigations at a distance. Then comes the very general 

 correspondence he must establish with the uninitiated, and with 

 those who know more than himself. Men of this kind, gradually 

 become the reposito?ies of an immense number of facts ; and if 

 they have the talent of arranging them naturally and lucidly, 

 so as to show the progress men are making, or ought to make, 

 in the knowledge of nature, their opinions are respected, and 

 they give them with a becoming confidence. 



We have many very clever men in our colleges, who in addi- 

 tion to their other attainments, are, according to the degree of 

 their opportunities, accurate naturalists. Most of these men are 

 silent — restrained by a strong sense of that deficiency, which 

 want of intercourse with men and things always generates in 

 ingenuous minds. It is the misfortune of those who are in a false 

 position, that conceiving themselves obliged to play that part 

 which belongs to men of greater discipline, they render their 

 own deficiencies the more conspicuous, giving the same degree 

 of confidence to the wise and the ignorant, hoping their good 

 intentions will atone for their want of intellectual power. It is 

 in this way that a Journal, once respectable in the eyes of men 

 of science, has become a receptacle for things stale and without 

 flavour, where fossil coal plants arc turned into petrified rattle- 

 snakes ; a translation warmly recommended to the public as very 

 faithful and able, which has been exposed in a very distressing 

 manner ; and where pretensions that will not endure a ray of in- 

 vestigation, are eulogized as the perfection of knowledge. 



INVESTIGATOR. 



M'MURTRIE'S TRANSLATION OF THE REGNE ANIMAL. 



Sir, — The remarks which you have appended to my review 

 of Dr. M'Murtrie's first volume of his translation, will, I hope, 

 produce the effect you good naturedly intended they should. 

 As to the pain which my strictures may give him, it will be but 



