BOYHOOD. 5 



long time, it seems necessary that I should tell more of myself 

 than I have done. In person I am tall, and in a good degree 

 awkward. I am silent, and when I do speak say little, 

 particularly to people of whom I am afraid, or with whom I am 

 not intimate. I care not for city sports, or for the diversions 

 of the country. I am equally unknown to any healthful amuse- 

 ment of boys. I cannot swim nor skate. I know nothing of the 

 delight of these, and yet I can amuse myself and be quite 

 happy, seemingly without any one to share my happiness. My 

 botanical knowledge extends to about thirty of the commonest 

 plants. I am very fond of botany, but I have not much 

 opportunity of learning anything, because I have only to show 

 the plant to James White, who tells me all about it, which I 

 forget the next minute. My mineralogy embraces about twelve 

 minerals, of winch I know only the names. I am totally 

 unacquainted with foreign shells, and know only about two hun- 

 dred and fifty native ones. As to ornithology, I have stuffed 

 about thirteen birds. In chemistry I read a few books, and tried 

 some experiments. In lithography I broke a stone and a 

 printing press. These are my pretensions to science. The 

 Donax Irus is a most curious shell. At Ycughal it is rather 

 rare, and never found except buried deep in the hardest lime- 

 stone. On the contrary, at Miltown it is found abundantly, and 

 never in any stone. This leads me to think it may turn out a 

 different species. I hate to see people showing a thing to 

 strangers, and being able to tell no more than that it is a very 

 pretty specimen. This is the principal reason why I have paid 

 no attention whatever to foreign shells. I could not procure 

 the books which treated of them, and people have blamed me 

 for not collecting. At length I made a beginning, hoping at 

 some time to get the desired information. Linnajus in his 

 Sy sterna disclaims all attention to animals, and minds only the 

 form of the shell. This, however, has brought his system into 

 disrepute, and it is tottering to its fall ; for he most preposterously 

 places land, sea, and fresh-water shells in the same genus, and 

 makes a little snail about one-tenth of an inch long, which 

 inhabits the mountains of England, to be of the same genus 

 as one of the most splendid sea-genera, viz., the genus 

 Buccinum. A few days and I shall have changed my schoolboy 

 life for the apron of an apprentice. However, I shall not be 



