THE SECOND "NATURAL HISTORY." 63 



question, too, represents his only venture in the 

 direction of fiction, the book being a small tale of school 

 life, so constructed as to give, in narrative form, much 

 useful advice upon outdoor and indoor games, and 

 athletic sports of various descriptions. In one of the 

 characters Edward Benson, eldest son of the head- 

 master he depicts himself as he was when a young 

 man; small and slight, and apparently weak and 

 unhealthy, but with great power of endurance, and no 

 little development of muscle. The book is so arranged 

 as to include exactly a year of school-life ; so that the 

 sports and recreations adapted to the different seasons 

 are all described in due succession. It has now, I 

 believe, for many years been out of print. 



The phenomenal success of the " Common Objects 

 of the Country " led to arrangements for the production 

 of a very much larger and more important work the 

 second Natural History. The preparations for this were 

 made upon an unusually lavish scale. All the illustra- 

 tions were to be drawn specially for the work, and only 

 the best artists were to be employed. Type, paper, and 

 all the other accessories were to be of the best descrip- 

 tion, and no expense was to be spared either in produc- 

 tion or in advertising. Finally, the work was first to 

 make its appearance in monthly parts (of which there 

 were to be forty-eight in all), and, after the whole was 

 completed, it was to be re-issued in the form of three 

 bulky volumes, of large octavo size. 



Of course the labour connected with the publication 

 of this large and important work was very severe. Each 



