20 INTRODUCTION. 



libraries, and who have few or none to consult, or 

 with whom they can associate, sometimes fall into 

 habits of indolence, from a feeling that they can do 

 but little for the advancement of science.* But we 

 have already said (9) how much is often within the 

 reach of these persons. And if they could only be 

 induced to become observers upon some regular 

 plan, they would soon find how little room for com- 

 plaint there was on the above ground ; how, indeed, 

 objects, worthy of notice, crowded upon their view 

 in proportion as they sought after them, of which, 

 perhaps, some had been daily under their eyes, but 

 passed over, from the mind never having been pro- 

 perly directed to them. 



(14.) The habit we are here recommending is pe- 

 culiarly adapted to a country life ; and, in the plea- 

 sures which it affords, offers a full compensation for 

 the loss of those advantages, which are only to be 

 reaped in the society of large towns. In the midst 

 of Nature's best gifts, and surrounded by the many 

 living inhabitants occupying the same ground as 

 himself, the observer hardly knows what it is to be 

 alone. He finds company wherever he goes, and of 

 a kind, moreover, from which there is always some 

 lesson to be gleaned, some instruction to be gather- 

 ed. He feels the truth of the great poet's remark, 

 that 



" Solitude sometimes is best society." 



Nor is there here any insipidity or sameness to tire 

 or disgust him. He takes the same rounds every 



* See, on this subject, For. Qu. Rev. vol. xiv. p. 317. 



