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M A M M A L I A. 



trious man must have been a life of pain and sorrow. 

 It was also a comparatively brief one, for he died, in 

 the forty-ninth year of his age, a victim to the plague. 

 But notwithstanding the painfulness and the brevity 

 of his life, Conrad Gesner was one of the most 

 extraordinary men whom the annals of the race con- 

 tains ; and what he did under severe bodily sufferings 

 and pecuniary privations, may serve to put to shame 

 hundreds of pretended philosophers who dwell at 

 ease, live in plenty, and repay the advantages which 

 they enjoy by doing nothing. The feeble body of 

 Gesner did not prevent him from exploring the Alps ; 

 and though he was often obliged to write for his 

 bread, he contrived to establish and support a bota- 

 nical garden, and in addition to this, he was the first 

 who established a regular museum of natural history. 

 He contrived to collect a most valuable library, and 

 amid all his difficulties to keep employed a painter 

 and engraver to record his own personal discoveries. 

 He may, in fact, be said to be the modern father of 

 natural science ; for it was under him that natural 

 history, degraded as it had been during the middle 

 ages, rose to the rank of a department in philosophy. 

 The works of Gesner are exceedingly voluminous, 

 and would astonish many of the small authors of 

 modern times, who deem the production of two or 

 three little volumes an effort. Among the rest of his 

 works there are four folio volumes on the history of 

 animals, compilations in great part, but combined with 

 a commentary, which shows that Gesner had made 

 himself master of all that had been handed down 

 from earlier times upon the subject ; and though 

 his accounts are in many instances blended with fable, 

 they are always amusing, and generally speaking 

 instructive. 



Gesner had a contemporary every way worthy of 

 him in Aldrovando, who was Professor of Botany in 

 the University of Bologna. This eminent man de- 

 voted his time and his talents, and expended his 

 fortune, in the advancement of every department of 

 natural science ; and he did so with a zeal and per- 

 severance to which there is scarcely any parallel in 

 the annals of philosophic investigation. He visited 

 many countries for the express purpose of becoming 

 acquainted with their natural productions, in order 

 that he might describe them faithfully as they exist 

 in nature ; and in order that the results of his labours 

 might not be lost, he employed, for at least thirty 

 years, some of the most eminent draughtsmen and 

 engravers of Europe. His collections in natural his- 

 tory were most extensive, and laid the foundation of 

 that museum of natural history which is still one ol 

 the .chief attractions Qf the university of which he 

 was so great an ornament. Though his classification 

 is in-many respects faulty, and his accounts of animals 

 are often vitiated by fabulous and superstitious narra- 

 tions, yet in general his descriptions of whatever 

 came under his own notice are exceedingly correct ; 

 which clearly proves that the errors and absurdities 

 in his works are not faults of himself, but of the times 

 in which he lived. His works, or at least the works 

 which bear his name, amount in all to thirteen folio 

 volumes ; but he is answerable for only six out of the 

 thirteen, for the remaining seven were compiled from 

 his manuscripts after his death. As is the case will 

 Gesqer, so Aldrovando was in a great measure a 

 compiler ;. and there is no doubt that both the one 

 and the other, in many instances, sacrificed their own 

 judgment to the absurd taste of the age. That taste 



hen ran strongly upon the implicit copying of ancient 

 minorities, without inquiring as lo whether the state- 

 ments of those authorities were founded in reason or 

 lot. This fetter of the understanding was no doubt 

 at first sacerdotal ; and the priests of an unreasoning 

 and therefore unmeaning faith, finding that they had 

 succeeded in chaining down the human mind in mat- 

 ters of religion, naturally laboured to do the same 

 upon every subject in which thinking is concerned. 

 This was the fatal moral and mental slavery of the 

 middle ages ; and, for breaking the fetters of this 

 slavery, the religionist and the philosopher are equally 

 indebted to Luther and his illustrious compeers. It 

 could hardly indeed be otherwise ; for those who, 

 from the most worthless motives, stood between their 

 fellow men and the revealed word of God could not 

 fail to stand between them and the God of nature as 

 exhibited in his works. Those times have, however, 

 happily for the world, now gone by, and it behoves 

 us to be tender of the errors and frailties of those 

 who aided in breaking the fetters. 



In noticing those by whom the knowledge of the 

 mammalia has been promoted, it would be injustice 

 to pass over the name of Johnston. He was a Polish 

 physician, but travelled over most countries of Europe 

 for the purpose of examining the animals which they 

 contain, though the works which he has left recorded 

 are in substance little else than abridgments of those 

 of his predecessors. 



At this period of the history of the science, we, 

 however, come to a name which it is impossible for 

 any lover of nature to pronounce without the highest 

 veneration the truly illustrious John Ray, the real 

 father of natural history in Britain. Ray devoted 

 fifty laborious years to the study of natural history, 

 more especially zoology, and peculiarly the mam- 

 malia ; and whatever he touched was touched with 

 the hand of a master- His Synopsis is the first regu- 

 lar and philosophical system that appeared ; and in 

 proportion to the knowledge then attainable, we may 

 perhaps say that it could not have been better. Ray 

 was a thorough and searching philosopher, and at 

 the same time a most admirable master of language ; 

 so that his brief descriptions often contain more than 

 the laboured and lengthened details of more modern 

 authors. Ray too studied nature in the proper spirit, 

 and of all the works which have appeared expressly 

 upon the subject of natural theology, there is perhaps 

 none equal in purity of spirit and depth of philosophy 

 to Ray's " Wisdom of God in the Works of Crea- 

 tion." It is perfectly refreshing to revert to such a 

 man, and we know not where the lamp of natural, 

 history can be so purely or so successfully kindled in 

 the young, as at that unextingtiishable radiance which 

 this most illustrious of British naturalists has left be- 

 hind him ; nor would it be fair to omit that Ray was 

 as zealous for the civil and religious liberty of man as 

 he was for the true knowledge of nature. He suf- 

 fered, and suffered severely, under the mental bondage 

 of a most illiberal and bigot reign ; and perhaps no 

 expression of triumph is more sincere, and at the 

 same time more touching, than that which John Ray 

 expressed because he had lived to see the revolution 

 in 16^8 ; and what adds to its value is that it was us 

 pure as fervent, for John Ray neither sought nor re- 

 ceived, nor in all probability would have accepted 

 any office of emolument, or any favour from any 

 government upon earth, how much soever he mijrht 

 have admired its principles. It is one of the proudest 



