REVIEWS. 
87 
irrelevant matter introduced in all places. Not content with the clear de¬ 
finition of the only principles on which a Christian man should, enter on 
these studies, which renders the preface so pleasing, where such comments 
are thoroughly in place, Mr. Morris profusely scatters minor prefaces, frag¬ 
ments of “ improvements,” over every page of the work, sometimes, as at 
pp. 116, 117, at a great length. What he says is very true, very good, 
but very commonplace, the “ garden whites” of moralizing, and, in almost 
every instance, would be equally appropriate anywhere else; the interference 
with the matter in hand is conspicuous and offensive, and exceedingly un¬ 
called for. It is true he defends himself by saying, that “ moralizing is 
never out of place” (which we devoutly hope may never pass into an 
axiom) ; but the only good point in the defence is, that it shows that his 
conscience is a little uneasy. Such inopportune “ reflections,” where they 
have no connection whatever with the subject, do the holy cause he would, 
further far more harm than good; his readers are fretted at the interruption 
of the “ history” of some butterfly for the sake of introducing a sentiment 
which would be as much to the point in the “ History” of any other but¬ 
terfly from P. machaon to Cyclopides painscus, or in any book of natural 
history, or science, or history, or biography, or travels, or good storybook, 
or anywhere else. All such things are, we believe, much better confined 
to the preface, which is an introduction to the subject treated of in the 
book ; when we enter on the book itself we want information about butter¬ 
flies, not sermonettes, however good in themselves. But this is not all; 
Mr. Morris is as discursive as one of his own butterflies ; he gives us an 
account of some of his friends’ notices of his Oxford life, extracts from the 
University Calendar, thoughts on the introduction of railway travelling, and 
scraps of Mrs. Norton’s songs; he touches on the pleasures of angling, and 
says, that to catch a rare butterfly is as great a treat in its way as to catch 
a trout of three pounds weight, &c., which last effusion, by the way, is an 
introduction to the common ringlet. He even takes the trouble to assure 
us that Captain Blomer is no relation of Mrs. Bloomer, which a moderate 
study of orthography would have suggested to any one, to say nothing of 
the bad taste of such a remark. These ghostly pleasantries are abundant 
throughout the work, and, amongst them all, religious observations are led 
up and down in a fashion that strongly reminds us of poor Christian and 
Faithful, in Vanity Fair. Thus a great deal of time, paper, and patience, 
is mercilessly wasted, which would have been far better employed in im¬ 
parting some slight information about the leading characteristics of the 
different families and genera. Mr. Morris will, we hope, forgive these re¬ 
marks, which may be strong, because we feel strongly the greatness of the 
