84 Retrospective Criticism. 
was sown on the 29th of October, on the same day, and on a contiguous field, 
as reported from last year, where a braird was obtamed in 19 days, under a 
temperature of 44° (Vol. IL. p.97.), has not yet appeared above ground, 
although 11 days more have elapsed; the mean temperature of the period 
being 39°8°. Such is the variable climate of Scotland, and such are the 
effects of four degrees of diminished temperature on vegetation, when it ap- 
proaches that point at which vegetation stands still. —4.G, Nov. 30. 
Art. I. Retrospective Criticism. 
THE Journal of a Naturalist has already been reviewed in 
the pages of your Magazine; it would be superfluous, there- 
fore, to submit it to a fresh analysis. As the first impression, 
however, seems to have met with an unusually ready and 
rapid sale, I may be allowed, perhaps, briefiy to notice the 
second edition, which the public has had the good taste thus 
early to call for. It is no wonder the work has found so 
favourable a reception, for a more pleasing little volume, re- 
lating to what may be termed the popular study of natural 
history, has seldom issued from the press. It is calculated 
to afford pleasure to the most experienced observer, by pre- 
senting to his mind, in an agreeable form, objects with which, 
perhaps, he may be already familiar, and to lure the inex- 
perienced to the like pursuits, and enlist them among the 
lovers of nature. If our author wants the merit of originality 
justly due to Gilbert White, his volume, nevertheless, is not 
unworthy of occupying a permanent place on the same shelf 
with that of the historian of Selborne. There is withal such 
an admirable tone of good feeling pervading every page of 
the book, from beginning to end, that it was not without sur- 
prise, not without something like indignation, that I read the 
severe and unmerited censure passed upon the writer by the 
reviewer, Vol. II. p. 181.o0f your Magazine. There are some 
critics, however, who seem to think that they do not well fulfil 
the functions of their office, unless they inflict a certain degree 
of chastisement on every unlucky author who comes under their 
clutches. Accordingly, the reviewer falls foul of our author, 
who, if he be not an errant hypocrite, must be an amiable and 
kind-hearted man, and accuses him —of what? why, of “ wéter 
insensibility to the misery he describes,” viz. of the poor; and, 
moreover, attributes this want of feeling to ‘a habit of enjoying 
his own ease, without thinking of others ; and of looking upon 
the poor (perhaps unconsciously to himself) as an inferior race 
of beings.” On referring to the original passage of the Journal, 
I confess, I really can see nothing in it to call forth such seve- 
rity: and the author himself too (who, in all probability, must 
have seen this piece of criticism), we may conclude, is of the 
