THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 9 



vered to tlieir 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 Sal- 

 tero (as no doubt the Neapolitan gentlemen talked 

 of Ferrante Imperato the apothecary, and his mu- 

 seum) ; great excuses for Yoltaire, when he classes 

 the collection of butterflies among the other " bigar- 

 rures de I'esprit humain." For, in the last gene- 

 ration, the needs of the world were different. It 

 had no time for butterflies and fossils. While 

 Buonaparte was hovering on the Boulogne coast, 

 the pursuits and the education which were needed 



