ENTOMOLOGY. 
149 
was by no means uncommon ; and although some writers of that 
age occasionally touched upon subjects of natural history, this was 
done with a tone of conscious superiority, which sounds almost 
as if the gentlemen in question felt that they were patronising 
Nature by condescending to take any notice of her productions. 
The entomologist, especially, was always somewhat of an object 
of pity, a sort of harmless lunatic. Dr. Johnson, we may fancy, 
would place him just a step or two higher than that young man 
who was last heard of 44 running about town shooting cats ” ; 
with others he was a virtuoso , and we all know pretty well what 
that term indicated ; and even Kichardson, the mild idol of the 
tea-table, refers to natural-history pursuits in a fashion which 
may be taken to indicate pretty clearly the estimation in which 
they were held in his day. Lady Gr., Sir Charles Grrandison’s 
sister, writes of her husband : 44 He will give away to a virtuoso 
friend his collection of moths and butterflies : I once, he re- 
membered, rallied him upon them. 6 And by what study,’ 
thought I, 4 wilt thou, honest man, supply their place ? If thou 
hast a talent this way, pursue it ; since perhaps thou wilt not 
shine in any other.’ And the best of anything, you know, 
Harriet, carries with it the appearance of excellence. Nay, 
he would also part with his collection of shells, if I had no 
objection. 4 To whom, my lord ? ’ He had not resolved. 4 Why, 
then, only as Emily is too little of a child, (!) or you might give 
them to her.’ He has taken my hint, and has pre- 
sented his collection of shells to Emily ; and they two are 
actually busied in admiring them ; the one strutting over the 
beauties, in order to enhance the value of the present ; the other 
curtseying ten times in a minute, to show her gratitude. Poor 
man ! when his virtuoso friend has got his butterflies and moths, 
I am afraid he must set up a turner’s shop for employment.” 
There ! isn’t the badinage delightful ? And, as if to point the 
moral, 44 a fine set of Japan china with brown edges” is 
spoken of in the same letter in terms of appreciation, although 
the fussiness of my Lord Gr. in connection therewith receives a 
stroke or two. The gentle, moral Eichardson evidently thought 
entomologists a somewhat contemptible race, as, at a later 
period, did that redoubtable satirist, 44 Peter Pindar,” whose 
descriptions of Sir Joseph Banks in pursuit of the 44 Emperor 
of Morocco,” and boiling fleas to ascertain whether they were 
lobsters, are pretty well known. 
If we consider the origin of this contempt, which undoubtedly 
until comparatively recent times did pursue the unfortunate 
entomologist, we may pretty safely refer it to two causes, — in 
the first place, the ignorance of all natural-history matters 
which must have prevailed in a society in which Oliver Grold- 
smith shone as a naturalist ; and in the second to the fact, that 
most of the entomologists of the time were really mere collec- 
