LITERARY WORK IN LONDON. 211 



of literary work immediately came in his way, and pro- 

 mised to be quite as lucrative as a tropical excursion and 

 much less laborious. He was very properly anxious, 

 moreover, to give due literary form to the ornithological 

 discoveries which he had made in the West Indies, and 

 before he had been a month in London, he began to write 

 for Mr. Van Voorst his volume on The Birds of Jamaica, 

 which he completed in the following March. This was 

 one of the most important and compendious of his works, 

 and he tempered the strain of its composition by com- 

 piling, at the same time, for his old friends the Society for 

 Promoting Christian Knowledge, a volume on The Monu- 

 iuents of Ancient Egypt, which, however, was not published 

 until November, 1847. This book professes to be no more 

 than *' a plain treatise for plain people," and Philip Gosse 

 had no first-hand knowledge of archaeology. He was, 

 however, helped in writing it by two distinguished Egypto- 

 logists — Dr. Samuel Birch, of the British Museum, and 

 the Rev. G. G. Renouard, Rector of Swanscombe, in Kent. 

 It is, of course, long since obsolete, but it ran with esteem 

 through several editions. 



The Birds of Jamaica was published on May i, 1847, 

 and was received with great respect by the world of 

 science. He says, in one of his letters, speaking of this 

 book, " It sells rather slowly, but every one praises it, and 

 it has been well reviewed in Germany." The publication 

 of The Birds of Jamaica raised Philip Gosse's reputation 

 with a bound, and among those ornithologists who took 

 this opportunity of making his personal acquaintance, and 

 gave expression to their admiration, were prominent Sir 

 William Jardine, the Vicomte du Bus, John Gould, and 

 D. W. Mitchell. The book filled a gap in the existing 

 records of science, and it contrived to please two classes of 

 readers, since, while its scientific definitions were accurate 



