104 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



defective mode of preserving specimens for museums. The method 

 which I have invented (as I have observed elsewhere) cannot be 

 attained through the medium of instructions committed to paper. 

 Nothing, indeed, short of personal demonstration on my part, in a 

 process of three weeks' duration, will suffice ; but, as there is no pro- 

 bability that I shall enter into such a course, I foresee that this novel 

 method will sink down into oblivion with him who has produced it. 

 " But it is time to say farewell, and to bid adieu to Natural 

 History, as far as the press is concerned. I trust that the account 

 of my adventures will not disedify the reader, nor cause a frown upon 

 his face, which it has been my ardent endeavour to brighten up with 

 merriment. In casting my mind's eye over the two and sixty years 

 of my existence, the time appears like the falling of a leaf in autumn, 

 a mere 'sunbeam on a winter's day, a passing cloud in a tempestuous 

 sky,' sure monitors to put us in mind, ' that we are here now and 

 gone in a moment ! ' I cannot divest myself of fear, when I consider 

 how little I have done hitherto, and how much I might have done in 

 preparation for that eventful day, when 



* Mors stupebit et Natura, 

 Cum resurget Creatura, 

 Judicanti responsura ; ' 



that truly awful day, in which a cup of cold water, given to the 

 thirsty, in the name of our dear Redeemer, will be of infinitely more 

 value to us than all our multifarious labours to please a captious and 



seductive world. 



' Only the actions of the just 

 Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.' " 



With these lines Waterton concluded the second instalment of 

 his autobiography. Thirteen years afterwards he resumed the 

 chronicle, and wrote in 1857 the final portion which follows : 



" On the 26th of May 1844, in the last page but one of my Auto- 

 biography, continued in the second volume of the ' Essays on Natural 

 History,' I bade farewell to the reader, and to that delightful pursuit 

 at the same time, so far as the public press was concerned. The 

 fact is, I saw, not without some faint inward feelings of regret, that 



