BARON CUVIEK. 153 



could make even his classical attainments serve 

 the science to which he was devoted. Pliny has 

 frequently been magnified into a great author 

 concerning natural history, and his writings 

 appealed to as a most indisputable source of 

 information. It seems, however, that he was 

 but a skilful compiler ; he copied what others 

 had said before; he asserted many things from 

 common report, and could by no means be 

 relied on with that security which is due to 

 the naturalist who describes from personal ob- 

 servation. Thus, although there is much in him 

 to believe and to admire, considerable caution is 

 requisite in the study of his pages ; and it is 

 a most important service rendered to the inex- 

 perienced, to have identified the animals of 

 Pliny, to have shown how much is worthy of 

 confidence, and what should be rejected. 



I am now about to notice a work of a very 

 difierent character from any which have hitherto 

 been presented : it is a very small duodecimo 

 volume of eighty-nine pages, but it is a gem 

 which owes nothing of its lustre to its size, and 

 sparkles, amid other brilliants, from the exqui- 

 site feeling which breathes in every line. It does 

 not delight us by the charms of its eloquence, 

 so much as by placing M. Cuvier before us as a 



