4 LECTURE I. 



Another exalted character, whose hours of 

 leisure from the official employmcDts of his life 

 were devoted to this pursuit, was the learned and 

 accomplished Sir William Jones, whose works 

 bear ample testimony to the attention which 

 he paid to the history of the Productions of 

 Nature. 



The mistakes which occasionally appear in the 

 works of various authors, even of the highest cele- 

 brity, arising from a want of accurate information 

 relative to the natural subjects of which they are 

 speaking, are numerous and striking; the epithets 

 by which many objects are distinguished, are, for 

 this reason, improperly chosen, and utterly incon- 

 sonant with the character of the things intended. 

 This is no where more strikingly illustrated than 

 in the august lines of Milton, in which the de- 

 scription of a sleeping whale is injured by an epi- 

 thet of all others least according with the nature 

 of the animal. 



That sea-beast 



Leviathan, which God, of ail his works 

 Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream. 

 Hino haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam 

 The pilot of some small nigbt-founder'd skiff, 



