240 History of Conchology. 



study, which, so far from enhancing their reputation with the peo- 

 ple, required a comparative seclusion to be successfully pursued ; 

 while the disrelish for every science requiring a continuous and so- 

 ber observation of facts and experiments was heightened, at the 

 period we refer to, by a general luxury that had risen to an almost 

 incredible pitch, and by the mental excitability produced by their 

 foreign conquests and discoveries ; — for the tales of their travellers, 

 and the new and uncommon animals sent home from every quarter 

 to supply the theatre and circus, had rendered the minds of the 

 people — one and all — pliant to credulity, and apt to receive every 

 monstrous tale, and equally indisposed to attend to the simple phe- 

 nomena displayed in the ordinary economy of animal life. Pliny 

 largely participated the taste and credulity of his age, and hence 

 his work is the very antitype of the Greeks, — ample in its details 

 of the use and value of pearls and Tyrian purple, of anecdotes of 

 the follies of the rich in their dress, and in their dishes of snails 

 and oysters, &c. ; while he caters from every source wonderful sto- 

 ries of the feats of gigantic cuttles, and of the surprising intelli- 

 gence and habits of these and other molluscans which God verily hath 

 made, in harmony with their lower organization, feeble of instinct 

 and power. To Conchology as a science he has added nothing 

 which Aristotle did not supply ; but he furnishes some anecdotes 

 for a chapter on its economical applications, and has graced its 

 history with some tramontane and amusing fictions. 



Of the ancients, Aristotle and Pliny are the only names which 

 merit quotation in a history of conchology, and many centuries 

 elapse before we again meet with one whose writings give some 

 indication of its progress. The turmoil of society which accom- 

 panied and followed the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, 

 — the engrossing nature of the religion and superstitions of the 

 dark ages, — the exclusive attention bestowed on the writings of 

 the ancients at the revival of letters, — and the higher claims of 

 higher studies when civility and wealth had begun to diffuse a taste 

 for original compositions, and gave encouragement and leisure to 

 men of science and letters, — were all obliterative of a pursuit which 

 was solely ornamental, and had no attraction except to those chosen 

 few who found in the contemplation of Nature's works their principal 

 gratification. That this number was not inconsiderable is certain, for 

 otherwise it seems impossible to account for the publication of the vo- 

 luminous and expensively illustrated books on natural history, which 

 issued from the press within, or shortly after, the first century after 

 the discovery of printing. And indeed the monastic system, and its 



