PREFACE. 7 



favourite pursuit, and he devoted himself to it with inde- 

 fatigable zeal. He has been heard to say, that in investi- 

 gating the habits of the shrew mole, he walked many 

 hundred miles. Those parts of his natural history in 

 which he relates the results of his own observation, are 

 among the most interesting essays on that subject in our 

 language. This praise is due in a still greater degree to 

 his Rambles of a Naturalist, which are not inferior in 

 poetical beauty and vivid and accurate description, to the 

 celebrated letters of Gilbert White on the Natural History 

 of Selbourne. These essays were among the last pro- 

 ductions of his pen, and were written in the intervals of 

 acute pain and extreme debility. They form a mere 

 sketch of what he intended, and had he lived to com- 

 plete them, he would have left a work and a name of 

 enduring popularity. 



" There were few subjects of general literature, except- 

 ing the pufe and mixed mathematics, with which Dr. 

 Godman was not more or less familiar. Among other 

 pursuits to which his attention had been turned, was the 

 study of ancient coins, of which he had acquired a criti- 

 cal knowledge. 



" The powers of his mind were always buoyant. His 

 eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge seemed like the 

 impulse of gnawing hunger and unquenchable thirst. 

 Neither adversity nor disease could allay it, and had it 

 pleased Providence to heal his mortal wound, and prolong 



