148 Notice of British Naturalists. 



should inherit a handsome property on his father's death : and in 

 the mean time his allowance was such, that while it afforded him 

 a comfortable competence, it prevented his indulging in luxu- 

 ries; or seeking, in a more expensive sphere, for a higher stand- 

 ard of mind and action. The law he never practiced ; and a 

 few years after leaving college, he married, and settled down as a 

 quiet country gentleman. It was not till he was about forty 

 years of age, that he came into possession of his patrimony. 

 His mind however, was naturally active ; and he was constantly 

 employed in laying a foundation, in other studies, for his future 

 eminence in the walks of natural science. Intimate social inter- 

 course he appears particularly to have enjoyed. He was far from 

 shutting himself out from the society of his friends; he mixed 

 freely with such as his neighborhood afl!brded; and with the 

 marked politeness of the old school of manners, he highly relished 

 the company of the fair sex. He has left a few sonnets of his 

 own composing, which he addressed to particular ladies ; and 

 while the verse is neither very polished, nor manifests much 

 study or care, the whole is marked by a pleasing playfulness 

 of fancy ; an enlightened conception of the beauties of nature, 

 (the constituents of poetry,) and a high moral delicacy. During 

 this time, his attention seems to have been turned to the prac- 

 tical and economical uses of natural science ; and he thus refers 

 to the subject in his preface to British Zoology ; — "At a time 

 when the study of natural history seems to revive in Europe, 

 and the pens of several illustrious foreigners have been employed 

 in enumerating the productions of their respective countries, we 

 are unwilling that our island should remain insensible to its pe- 

 culiar advantages ; we are desirous of diverting the astonishment 

 of our countrymen at the gifts of nature bestowed on other king- 

 doms, to a contemplation of those which (at least with equal 

 bounty) she has enriched our own. Why then should we neg- 

 lect inquiring into the various benefits that result from these in- 

 stances of the wisdom of our Creator, which his divine munifi- 

 cence has so liberally and so munificently placed before us ?"* 



* The study of tlie economical uses of naturtil history has been, hitherto, very 

 little cultivated, and- requires more general attention. As a true science it has, of 

 course, an art in natural connection with it; and the full elucidation of tliis art is 

 still wanting. The most obvious application of it is to agriculture, taking the 

 word in its widest sense; but there is scarcely a physical subject of ordinary oc- 

 currence which might not be more or less indebted to it. The distribution of 



