80 COSMOS. 



the power possessed by the observer of representing what he 

 has seen, the animating influence of the descriptive element, 

 and the miiltiphcation and enlargement of views opened to us 

 on the vast theater of natural forces, may all serve as means 

 of encouraging the scientific study of nature, and enlarging its 

 domain. The writer who, in our German literature, accord- 

 ing to my opinion, has most vigorously and successfully opened 

 this path, is my celebrated teacher and friend, George Forster. 

 Through him began a new era of scientific voyages, the aim 

 of which was to arrive at a knowledge of the comparative 

 history and geography of different countries. Gifted with del- 

 icate aesthetic feelings, and retaining a vivid impression of the 

 pictures with which Tahiti and the other then happy islands 

 of the Pacific had filled his imagination, as in recent times 

 that of Charles Darwin,* George Forster was the first to de- 

 pict in pleasing colors the changing stages of vegetation, the 

 relations of climate and of articles of food in their influence 

 on the civilization of mankind, according to differences of orig- 

 inal descent and habitation. All that can give truth, indi- 

 viduality, and distinctiveness to the delineation of exotic na- 

 ture is united in liis works. We trace, not only in his admi- 

 rable description of Cook's second voyage of discovery, but 

 still more in his smaller writings, the germ of that richer fruit 

 which has since been matured. f But alas I even to his noble, 

 sensitive, and ever-hopeful spirit, life yielded no happiness. 



If the appellation of descriptive and landscape poetry has 

 sometimes been applied, as a term of disparagement, to those 

 descriptions of natural objects and scenes which in recent 

 times have so greatly embellished the literature of Germany, 

 France, England, and America, its application, in this sense, 

 must be referred only to the abuse of the supposed enlarge- 

 ment of the domain of art. Rhythmical descriptions of natu- 

 ral objects, as presented to us by Delille, at the close of a 

 long and honorably-spent career, can not be considered as 

 poems of nature, using the term in its strictest definition, not- 

 withstanding the expenditure of refined rules of diction and 

 versification. They are wanting in poetic inspiration, and 

 consequently strangers to the domain of poetry, and are cold 

 and dry, as all niust be that shines by mere external polish. 



* See Journal and RemarJcs, by Charles Darwin, 1832-1836, in the 

 Narrative of ike Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. iii., p. 479- 

 490, where there occurs an extremely beautiful description of Tahiti. 



t On the merit of George Forster as a man and a writer, see Gervinns, 

 Gcsch. dcr Poet. National-Litteratur der DaUschei„, tli v., s. 3i>0-392 



