38 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



the task of opening a way for the publication of his 

 volume. 



Here, first, is his account of the conception and plan 

 of the book, as presented to his tried and faithful friend, 

 Sir T. D. Lauder, so early as March, 1833 : ' In making 

 choice of my subject, I thus reasoned with myself : 

 White's Natural History of Selborne is a most popular 

 little book, and deservedly so, though Selborne itself be 

 but an obscure parish somewhere in the south of England. 

 The very local title of the work has not in the least 

 militated against its interest. But why ? Partly, it 

 would seem, from the very pleasing manner in which it 

 is written ; partly because the natural history of even a 

 single parish may be regarded as the natural history of 

 the whole country in which that parish is included. And 

 may not the germ of a similar popularity be found, if 

 the writer do not fail in his part, in the traditional his- 

 tory of a Scottish village ? Which of all the animals is 

 a more interesting study than man ? Or can those varie- 

 ties of any of the numerous classes which we find in one 

 district of country be more clearly identified with the 

 varieties which we find in another, than we can identify 

 with one another those multiform classes of the human 

 character which, though everywhere different in their 

 minor traits, are everywhere alike in their more import- 

 ant ? Besides, the history of one Scottish village is in 

 some measure the history of every one ; nay, more, it 

 may form a not unimportant portion of that of the king- 

 dom at large. The people of Scotland, in all its several 

 districts, have been moving forward, throughout the last 

 century, over nearly the same ground, though certainly 

 not at the same pace ; and a faithful detail of the various 

 changes and incidents which have occurred during their 

 march from what they were in the past to what they are 



