BE A UTY IN THE ANIMAL CREA TION. 469 



suppleness of body, and such elasticity in its springs, as can only be 

 equalled by those of the tiger itself. It were loss of time to adduce 

 any more specimens of beauty and perfection in the animal world, 

 every part of which teems with objects calculated to increase our 

 thanks and gratitude to God. When we talk of this ugly animal, or 

 of that deformed reptile, or of such a pernicious insect, the true solu- 

 tion of these remarks is, that we avoid the bear because he would 

 hug us to death ; that we dread the cayman because he would swallow 

 us ; and that we abhor the bug on account of its bite and unsavoury 

 smell. Still, whilst we are examining these animals as they lie dead 

 before us, we may remark with the monster Nero, treading over his 

 own prostrate mother we did not think that they had been so hand- 

 some. In our rambles up and down this globe, when we fall in with 

 animals whose shape appears to us either defective or deformed, 

 and whose habits cannot be accounted for, we may lay it down to 

 a certainty, that the work of our great Creator is perfect in all its 

 parts j and that we are at a loss how to turn it to our profit, solely 

 because we have not spent a sufficient time at school in the instruc- 

 tive field of nature. 



I intended to have added here a few remarks on man, and to have 

 glanced at the noble symmetry of his frame, and to have made an 

 observation or two on the habits which he has acquired by being in 

 a state of high civilisation : but as he is the prince of the creation, 

 and endowed with reason to make a selection of what is pleasing and 

 profitable to him from nature's giant storehouse, I will reserve a 

 chapter for the purpose. Volumes have been written, and will still 

 be written, on his virtues and his vices, his merits and defects, his 

 customs and his follies. With this before my eyes, I scarcely know 

 what to pen down on a small scrap of paper, that may be in the least 

 worthy of the reader's attention. If I fail in my attempt either to 

 amuse him or to instruct him, I trust that he will show me mercy, 

 for I feel quite convinced that the subject is far too abstruse, refined, 

 and lofty for an humble pen like mine. 



