98 
EE VIEWS. 
microscope makers. He speaks of skilful workmen of the present day 
being able to reach a diameter of 450 with distinctness of vision, and 
beyond that says the outlines become less clear, and images grow more 
and more confused. Why we use a Boss J-th, with a B eye-piece, and 
get as distinct vision as with his Jth, and a magnification of 670. But 
we must not dwell on this subject any further, or give details that are 
so very well known to every British microscopist. Once more we advise 
our readers to peruse these fascinating volumes. Let them read them, and 
then, in their author’s language, if they still preserve any of those illu¬ 
sions, which day by day are vanishing amid the turmoils of life,—“If they 
regret the dreams that have fled, never to return, these volumes will 
persuade them to go to the ocean’s side, and there, on its sonorous hanks, 
they will assuredly recall some of the golden fancies that shed such a 
radiance over the hours of their youth: there they will listen to the grand 
harmonious voices of the winds and waves, as at one moment they seem 
to murmur gentle melodies, and at another to swell in the thundering 
crash of their majesty ; mark the capricious undulations of the waves as 
far as the hounds of the horizon, where they merge into the fantastic 
figures of the clouds, and seem to rise before one’s eyes into the liquid 
sky above ! Then let them give themselves up to the sense of infinitude 
which is stealing over their minds; soon the tears they shed will have lost 
their bitterness; they will feel, ere long, that there is nothing [apper¬ 
taining to the earth, and therefore earthly] which can so thoroughly al¬ 
leviate the sorrows of the heart as the contemplation of nature, and of 
the sublime spectacle of creation,—which leads, in fact, to God!” 
Sea-side Studies at Ilekacombe, Tenby, the Scilly Isles, and Jeesey. 
By George Henry Lewes. With Illustrations. Edinburgh and 
London: William Blackwood and Sons. 
Hot long since (vide “Hat. Hist. Rev.,” October, 1857) we called the 
attention of our readers to certain useless yet withal pretentious works 
on various subjects in connexion with Marine Zoology, which the stu¬ 
dent should carefully avoid, and to the same category we have now to 
add the “ Sea-side Studies” of Mr. Lewes. Inasmuch, too, as his work 
is better written than any of those to which we have alluded, so also is 
it to be feared that it will be in a greater degree productive of results 
injurious to Science. Mr. Lewes is both a ready and agreeable writer, 
and describes scenes and places in a graphic and amusing manner. In 
such a passage as the following, wherein he speaks of one of the walks 
in the neighbourhood of Ilfracombe :— 
“Another favourite walk was to Watermouth and Berryn Narbor, over the edges of 
majestic cliffs, revealing inlet after inlet, each differing in its wealth of colour, each a 
picture, till we pass into what are called the ‘meadows,’ really a noble park, through 
