8 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



tory, among the liiglier classes at least, in the 

 South of England, was White's " History of Scl- 

 bourne." A Hampshire gentleman and sports- 

 man, whom everybody knew, had taken the 

 trouble to write a book about the birds and the 

 weeds in his own parish, and the every-day things 

 which went on under his eyes, and every one 

 else's. And all gentlemen, from the Weald of 

 Kent to the Vale of Blackmore, shrugged their 

 shoulders mysteriously, and said, " Poor fellow!" 

 till they opened the book itself, and discovered 

 to their surprise that it read like any novel. 

 And then came a burst of confused, but honest 

 admiration ; from the young squire's " Bless me ! 

 who would have thought that there were so many 

 wonderful things to be seen in one's own park ! " 

 to the old squire's more morally valuable " Bless 

 me ! why I have seen that and that a hundred 

 times, and never thought till now how wonderful 

 they were ! " 



There were great excuses, though, of old, for 

 the contempt in which the naturalist was held ; 

 great excuses for the pitying tone of banter with 

 which the Spectator talks of " the ingenious " 

 Don Saltero (as no doubt the Neapolitan gen- 

 tlemen talked of Ferrante Imperato the apoth- 



