12 MADAME MERIAN. 



Insect forms, their singularity and surpassing beauty, which, 

 in the same era, inspired the artistic pencil of a Merian, and 

 induced her, with a woman's energy, to cross the seas, and 

 brave the noxious climate of Surinam, for the sake of its 

 curious and splendid Insects. These she has as truthfully 

 depicted ; * though misled, perhaps, by her own enthusiasm 

 into a too ready credence of the marvellous, the accuracy of 

 her accompanying descriptions has been more than questioned. 

 Thus in the latter end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th 

 centuries, a few among the most highly endowed with talent, 

 learning, and piety, considered the study of Entomology not 

 unworthy to constitute the grand pursuit of life ; yet, at this 

 very period, in such low estimation was it generally held, nay, 

 so extravagant or childish was it deemed, that we are told by 

 Kirby of an attempt to set aside the will of a rational woman 

 (Lady Glanville) on the ground of lunacy, evinced solely by 

 her fondness for collecting Insects. Ray himself had to appear 

 as a witness of her sanity. How was it that his own escaped 

 impeachment ? For all this, and calmly smiling at the scoffs of 

 the vulgar ignorant and vulgar learned, Entomology marched 

 on steadily, supported by a phalanx of staunch professors, such 

 as Reaumur (called the French Pliny), Lyonnet, Bonnet, 

 Gould, the historian of English Ants, the Swede, Baron 

 de Geer, and at the head of all, his illustrious countryman, 

 Linnaaus. 



From the glow-worm light in which it had so long glim- 

 mered, Entomology now shone, as it were, in the radiance of 

 a swarm of Fire-flies. Yet this, her augmented brightness, 

 did but serve for a season to make her a more conspicuous butt 

 for the shafts of ridicule ; and many a quill was shot, in 

 derision, at this persecuted science, which could only have 

 been aimed with any show of fairness at her merest classifiers 

 and collectors, such as every branch of Natural History may 

 number among the lesser minded of its votaries. But even 

 1 Insects of Surinam. 



