^4 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 obtained in 19 days, under a 

 temperature of 44° (Vol. II. p. 97.), has not yet appeared above ground, 

 although 1 1 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. — A. G. A^ov. 30. 



Art. II. 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, briefly 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. 1 8 1 . of 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 " utter 

 insensibility to the misery he descrihes^^ 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 



