History of Conchology. 265 



To this severity of censure his predecessors may naturally demur, and, 

 perhaps, there is some ground for retaliation, but that is an affair be- 

 tween themselves with which we need not meddle. To our children, or 

 readers, we cannot for our part recommend the boastful " Elements," 

 because we would wish them to be something better than amateurs, 

 and to know something more of conchology than the names of the 

 things they collect. The work is written in evident obedience to 

 the adage — " a great book is a great evil ;" — and in 62 duodecimo 

 pages we find an explanation of the few terms used in describing 

 shells, a distribution of these after the quinary plan, not more success- 

 ful than Oken's was when he arranged them after the sacred number 

 of four, with definitions of all the genera simply and neatly done, but 

 the characters derived exclusively from the shells ; and lastly a chap- 

 ter on collecting, preserving, and arranging these bodies, and a plan 

 of study. We shall defer our exposition of Mr Swainson's system 

 until the publication of " the Conchological volume of Dr Lardner's 

 Cabinet of Natural History shortly to be published." 



" It is easier to refute error than to establish truth :" quoth the 

 Rev. Mr Burrow with sententious profoundness, " thus, the several 

 writers who have dissented from the Linnsean school have, indeed, 

 satisfactorily pointed out some flaws in the great fabric of the ' Sys- 

 tema Naturae ;' but in attempting to eradicate the faulty parts, and to 

 supply their place more fitly, they have injured some of the main sup- 

 ports, and have nearly involved the whole edifice in ruin. (Very 

 pretty !) — The following pages are devoted to the task of facilitating 

 the study of conchology, on the method of the Swedish naturalist ; 

 and they are written under the firm persuasion, that a material change 

 is dangerous even in speculative matters, when the principle has 

 stood the test of general consent, and when the means of reaching 

 perfection are not yet, or, perhaps, may never be, attainable." — Such 

 is the twaddle — and there is much more of the same sort of stuff — 

 with which Mr B. recommends his ' Elements,' containing, in this 

 year A. d. 1836, nothing more than a dry unprofitable exposition of 

 the Linnsean system, the spirit of which the author does not compre- 

 hend. Living remote from " public haunt," and consequently in igno- 

 rance of the progress of conchology among the metropolitan connois- 

 seurs, we had concluded that the race of Linnaeans had become ex- 

 tinct, but it seems we have erred in our haste, and that some of them 

 are still in a living active state, for it were otherwise a sad prospect 

 to his publisher were this reverend gentleman to be alone left like 



" The late-blown rose 

 " Lingering after all the rest." 



