FRANCIS WILLUGHBT. 131 
vice. May persons of every class in society be 
constantly actuated by. a similar persuasion, and 
dread the first hour that shall find them unengaged 
iu some interesting and useful pursuit, as most 
certainly exposing them to the seductions of self- 
indulgence in animal pleasures ; whose syren 
voice, unless guarded against with the forethought 
and decision of the prince of Ithaca, may disable 
its captive listener from refusal or retreat, and 
involve him in a destruction more calamitous 
than that which strewed, with bones and corrup- 
tion, the rocks and caverns of Pelorus ! He had 
happily become convinced, that the only method 
whereby the mind can be preserved free from the 
solicitations of inordinate desires, and be kept 
both innocent and cheerful, is to occupy it with 
those pursuits which are conducive to a course 
of virtue and usefulness. 
The excellence of his choice will become more 
apparent, if it be considered to what powerful 
temptations he must have been exposed from 
station and affluence ; temptations increased in 
number and force by the state of his times, which 
offered him the excitement of political partisan- 
ship, or those coarse and dissolute pleasures to 
which persons of his position in society were 
then too generally addicted. 
It should also be remembered, that the depart- 
ments to which he devoted his time and energies, 
were then, comparatively, unexplored, and so 
new was one of them to the world generally, 
namely, the study of insects, that even at the 
