8 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



before we could proceed further. I enter on the task wil- 

 lingly, and owe you indeed thanks for having imposed it on 

 me, since it is very congenial to my taste, and will supply 

 pleasant occupation for hours, which might otherwise have 

 been wasted in idleness or ennui. If I succeed in communi- 

 cating to you a portion of my own enthusiasm, I feel assured 

 you will not repent having been brought into this way of 

 study. Several years have passed away since I entered upon 

 it, and each succeeding year the path has become pleasanter 

 and more thickly strewed with flowers ; and your experience, 

 trust me, will be correspondent.* The alphabet undoubt- 

 edly must be first acquired, and alphabets are irksome ; what 

 others have done must be learned, and in this we have little 

 other enjoyment than what every one is conscious of while 

 adding to his stores of knowledge ; but when you are thus 

 prepared to enter into all the perplexities of synonymes, and 

 all the niceties of systematical arrangement, to balance the 

 pros and cons, and try your skill in untying Gordian knots 

 which others, you fondly deem, have vainly tried to untie 

 before, then begins your real interest and zest : and leaving 

 even these small points behind, you may go onwards to trace 

 the paths which Lister and Cuvier loved to tread — to examine 

 the living animals in their haunts — unravel, with the knife 

 and the glass, the perplexed structure which supports their 

 life and regulates their functions and their habits. 



" By swift degrees the love of nature works, 

 And warms the bosom," — 



Enthusiasm grows apace, and now, strong enough, you are 

 urged to explore untrodden paths where, amidst the new 

 structures and unveiled proofs of your Creator's wisdom which 

 disclose themselves at every step, you lose yourself in rapture 

 and praise ! 



* " Scandenti circa ima labor est : cseterum quantum processeris, mol- 

 lietur clivus, et Isetius solum. Et, si hsec quoque jam lenius snpina peise- 

 verantibus studiis evaseris, inde fructus illaborati, offerunt sese, et omnia 

 sponte proveniunt: quse-tamen, quotidie nisi decerpantur, arescunt." — 

 Quinctilian, Instit. Orat. xii. 10. 



