8 love's meinie. 



lines of Milton on the Creation. The only example 

 of a proper manner of contribution to natural history- 

 is in White's Letters from Selborne. You know I 

 have always spoken of Bewick as pre-eminently a 

 vulgar or boorish person, though of splendid honour 

 and genius ; his vulgarity shows in nothing so much 

 as in the poverty of the details he has collected, 

 with the best intentions, and the shrewdest sense, for 

 English ornithology. His imagination is not culti- 

 vated enough to enable him to choose, or arrange. 



4. Nor can much more be said for the observations 

 of modern science. It is vulgar in a far worse way, 

 by its arrogance and materialism. In general, the 

 scientific natural history of a bird consists of four 

 articles, — first, the name and estate of the gentleman 

 whose gamekeeper shot the last that was seen in 

 England ; secondly, two or three stories of doubtful 

 origin, printed in every book on the subject of birds 

 for the last fifty years ; thirdly, an account of the 

 feathers, from the comb to the rump, with enumera- 

 tion of the colours which are never more to be seen 

 on the living bird by English eyes ; and, lastly, a 

 discussion of the reasons why none of the twelve 

 names which former naturalists have given to the 

 bird are of any further use, and why the present 

 author has given it a thirteenth, which is to be 

 universally, and to the end of time, accepted. 



