76 COSMOS. 



A greater depth of feeling and a fresher spirit of animation 

 pervade the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Bernardin de 

 St. Pierre, and Chateaubriand. If I here allude to the per- 

 suasive eloquence of the first of these writers, as manifested 

 in the picturesque scenes of Clarens and La Meillerie on Lake 

 Leman, it is because, in the principal works of this zealous 

 but ill-instructed plant-collector which were written twenty 

 years before Buffbn's fanciful Epoques, de la Nature* poetic 

 inspiration shows itself principally in the innermost peculiari- 

 ties of the language, breaking forth as fluently in his prose as 

 in the immortal poems of Klopstock, Schiller, Goethe, and 

 Byron. Even where there is no purpose of bringing forward 

 subjects immediately connected with the natural sciences, our 

 pleasure in these studies, when referring to the limited por- 

 tions of the earth best known to us, may be increased by the 

 charm of a poetic mode of representation. 



In recurring to prose writers, we dwell with pleasure on 

 the small work entitled Paid et Virginie, to which Bernardin 

 de St. Pierre owes the fairer portion of his literary reputation. 

 The work to which I allude, which can scarcely be rivaled 

 by any production comprised in the literature of other coun- 

 tries, is the simple picture of an island in the midst of a trop- 

 ical sea, in which, sometimes favored by the serenity of the 

 sky, and sometimes threatened by the violent conflict of the 

 elements, two charming creatures stand picturesquely forth 

 from the wild sylvan luxuriance surrounding them as with a 

 variegated flowery tapestry. Here, and in the CJiaumiere In- 

 dienne, and even in his Etudes de la Nature, which are un- 



* The succession iu which the works referred to were published is 

 us follows: Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1759, Nouvelle Hiloise; Buffon, 

 Epoques de la Nature, 1778, but his Histoire Naturellc, 1749-1767 r Ber- 

 nardin de St. Pierre, Etudes de la Nature, 1784, Paul et Virginie, 1788, 

 Chaumiere Indienne, 1791; George Forster, Reise nach der Sudsee, 

 1777, Kleine Schriften, 1794. More than half a century before the 

 publication of the Nouvelle He'loise, Madame de Sevigne, in her charm- 

 ing letters, had already shown a vivid sense of the beauty of nature, 

 such as was rarely expressed in the age of Louis XIV. See the fine 

 natural descriptions in the letters of April 20, May 31, August 15, Sep- 

 tember 16, and November 6, 1671, and October 23 and December 28, 

 1689 (Aubenas, Hist, de Madame de Sevign6, 1842, p. 201 and 427). 

 My reason for referring in the text to the old German poet, Paul Flem- 

 ming, who, from 1633 to 1639, accompanied Adam Olearius on his 

 journey to Muscovy and to Persia, is that, according to the convincing 

 authority of my friend, Varnhagen von Ense (Biographische Denkw., 

 bd. iv., s. 4, 75, and 129), " the character of Flemming's compositions 

 is marked with a fresh and healthful vigor, while his images of nature 

 are tender and full of life." 



