22 $ 
LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. 
weak minds of young ladies,” when in fact it is the development of the object¬ 
or that is really contemptible, as being unable to appreciate what may perhaps be 
regarded as the most ennobling, soul-inspiring and civilizing pursuits that can 
engage the mind of man—pursuits that have occupied the attention of some of 
the most gifted and philosophical men of all ages and all countries—that ever 
have and ever will prove a source of the purest and most thrilling pleasure to 
thousands of individuals in every part of the world. These pursuits may indeed 
be stigmatized as useless, contemptible, or pernicious, by those who believe that 
to gain everlasting happiness hereafter we must be miserable here, or that only 
those occupations can be advantageous which stimulate and exercise our inferior 
faculties. With such men we confess we have nothing in comm®n. We enter¬ 
tain a loftier idea of the beneficent Creator than to believe that he delights in 
beholding our misery, or that he intended us to deny ourselves the due exercise 
of any of those faculties which have been assigned to each and all of us, and the 
enjoyment accruing therefrom. We hold, that whatever tends to minister to our 
real happiness in this fleeting world, equally ensures the attainment of that which 
will be enduring. Now the study of the wonderful and endlessly-varied works 
of Nature, abounding as they everywhere do with proofs of the wisdom and all- 
prevailing intelligence of the Artificer of the Universe, cannot but tend to improve 
our minds and add to our happiness both in this spot of earth and in the far 
more glorious state of existence in which, by reason of the superiority of our 
organization, sickness and sorrow will be alike unknown, when the interests of 
one will be those of all, and when both friends and foes shall meet to part no 
more. 
With this high aim in view, we object to the term contemptible, as applied to 
the study of any part of Nature’s works; and although Mr. Watson, naturally 
carried away by the ardour of his feelings in the cause of Phrenology, probably 
intended no disrespect to Natural History, we would rather that the appearance 
conveyed by his expressions had been avoided, especially as there is no necessity 
of proving the utility of one branch of knowledge at the expense of the credit of 
another department. 
LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. 
A work entitled the Coleopterist’s Manual , containing descriptions of the 
Lamellicorn insects, has, we understand, lately been published, by the Rev. F. W. 
Hope . 
We have received a critical notice of Sir W. Jardine’s Raptores from a corres¬ 
pondent ; but as the work itself has not been forwarded to us, the review must 
not expect admission to the exclusion of reviews of publications which have been 
received. We hope to publish the critique next month. 
