380 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



GOLDSMITH AS A NATUBALIST. 

 By Bruce F. Cummings. 



Oliver Goldsmith might have been a naturalist had the 

 opportunity presented itself. But he would undoubtedly have 

 first been poet and novelist, and Fate allowed him to go thus far 

 but little further. For it was his lot to earn his daily bread by 

 scribbling catchpenny compilations for the booksellers, and in 

 the spare moments to fight for fame by modelling his works of 

 genius. If he had only been granted a few more spare moments, 

 he could have spent them in the woods and fields, and we should 

 find his ' Animated Nature ' full of original observation, and in 

 every respect quite a different book. 



However, of his few opportunities for studying nature he 

 made the very best ; and there is pathos in the fact that, through 

 watching the ways of the spider in the dusty little garret in 

 Green Arbor Court, he was afterwards able to contribute an 

 article on its habits to ' The Bee.' Then one reads of his 

 observing the antics of the Books from the Inner Temple ; walk- 

 ing in the lanes around the farmhouse on the Edgware Koad — 

 another of his lodgings ; and, in his happy Irish days, following 

 the gentle art of Izaak Walton, whose pretty writing he since 

 lived to honour with praise. During these short periods of 

 leisure, he saw more, thought more, and admired more than do 

 many in a lifetime. The high position he now holds in the 

 world of letters he owes primarily to his great love of the country 

 and the rural life — depicted in ' The Deserted Village ' and ' The 

 Vicar of Wakefield ' with the originality and freshness which is 

 Nature's own. 



The chief fault in ' Animated Nature ' is that it is a com- 

 pilation. Goldsmith borrows from a large number of authors, 

 including Buffon, Aristotle, Pliny, Linnseus, Pennant, and 

 Swammerdam ; however, he would probably have done better 



