THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



289 



side of natural science, which does not try to comprehend 

 nature through the artificial arrangement or classification 

 of a museum, but in those connections, among her own 

 animate and inanimate objects, which constitute reality, 

 and are the characteristics of life and development. It 

 was the real, not the artificial, Jardin des Plantes, 

 where he and his successors tried to study natural 

 objects and the habits of living beings. 1 Another re- 



Many animals, till then accounted 

 rare, are now known to exist as 

 common objects, while the annals 

 of science have received many im- 

 portant additions of animals alto- 

 gether new to natural history 

 records discoveries which have 

 caused the Firth of Clyde, and more 

 particularly the Cumbrae Islands, 

 to become one of the best explored 

 and most widely known districts 

 of Britain " (Gray, Secretary of 

 the Glasgow Natural History So- 

 ciety, quoted by Thomas R. R. 

 Stebbing in his 'Naturalist of Cum- 

 brae,' London, 1891.) 



William Pearson (1767-1847) of 

 Borderside, Crosthwaite, near Ken- 

 dal, was a self-educated yeoman, 

 who after many years spent in a 

 bank at Manchester retired to a 

 small patrimonial estate on the 

 southern border of Westmorland. 

 He possessed a choice collection of 

 books, representing fully the English 

 poets of all ages, and in translation 

 the best German authors. " Of 

 the habits of birds and other native 

 creatures around him he was a 

 watchful observer, and he described 

 them in purest English with a 

 charm that suggested no disadvan- 

 tageous comparison with White of 

 Selborne " (see Groves, ' Life of 

 Hamilton,' vol. iii. p. 15). He was 

 a friend of Wordsworth. 



To this list, which could be in- 

 definitely extended, I might add 

 another, beginning with Thomas 



VOL. I. 



Bewick (1753-1828), the reviver of 

 wood-engraving in England, who 

 lent his art and life to the delinea- 

 tion of nature. ' British Birds ' 

 (1797-1804) is a standard work on 

 the borderland of art and science, 

 in which many other British artists 

 have, in humbler or more extensive 

 fields, .laboured with so much faith- 

 fulness and success. 



1 The ' Complete Angler ' and the 

 ' Natural History of Selborne ' are 

 types of a class of literature peculiar 

 to this country. In these classical 

 productions we are introduced into 

 the nursery of English thought, po- 

 etry nay, of science itself. These, 

 as the nation draws ultimately its 

 wealth from the produce and culture 

 of the land, on their part receive 

 valuable ideas from a study of 

 nature. The purity and origin- 

 ality of English art and poetry have 

 then* home in the same region. 

 Gilbert White (1720-93) was born 

 and lived in the little Hampshire 

 village of Selborne. He was one of 

 five brothers, all of whom, in vari- 

 ous positions and vocations of life, 

 followed the study of nature in its 

 minute and local aspects, combining 

 with it an antiquarian taste. He 

 may not only be classed with the 

 naturalists, but belongs also to that 

 class of writers, peculiar also to Eng- 

 land, who devote their time to the 

 compilation of local records, of 

 county histories, and to the preser- 

 vation of the relics and memorials 



