THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 87 



A History of the Earth and Animated. Nature : by Oliver Gold- 

 smith. A New Edition in six vols. Edited by William Turton, 

 M.D. 1816. 



If Johnson's prophecy that Goldsmith would make 

 his Natural History as interesting as a fairy tale 

 has been fulfilled, it may also be added that he has 

 made it almost as fanciful as one. He tells us in 

 his preface, that his first idea was to give a transla- 

 tion of Pliny's Natural History, but, on the appear- 

 ance of Buffon's work, he dropped this intention, 

 and wrote a work of his own. This is much to be 

 regretted. A translation of Pliny (to the shame of 

 British literature be it spoken, we have only one, 

 that of Holland) would have been truly valuable, 

 as unsealing to the British Zoologist that curious 

 medley of truth and fiction, superstition and elo- 

 quence ; for very few, of course, can read it in the 

 original. However, the work before us is elegantly 

 written, and although no dependence can be placed 

 on the descriptions, it will yet afford amusement for 

 those who read rather for pleasure than instruction. 

 It does not trouble the reader with minute descrip- 

 tions of plumage, and perhaps it is not the worse 

 for this : " In fact," as the author himself observes, 

 " the colors of these birds [foreign Shrikes] which 

 is all we know of them would afford the reader but 

 small entertainment in the enumeration. Nothing 

 can be more easy than to fill volumes with the 

 different shades of a bird's plumage ; but these 

 accounts ai'e written with more pleasure than they 



