The "Etudes de la Nature" embraced a thousand different subjects, and
contained some new ideas on all. It is to the honour of human nature,
that after the uptearing of so many sacred opinions, a production like
this, revealing the chain of connection through the works of Creation,
and the Creator in his works, should have been hailed, as it was, with
enthusiasm.

His motto, from his favourite poet Virgil, "Taught by calamity, I pity
the unhappy," won for him, perhaps many readers. And in its touching
illusions, the unhappy may have found suspension from the realities of
life, as well as encouragement to support its trials. For, throughout,
it infuses admiration of the arrangements of Providence, and a desire
for virtue. More than one modern poet may be supposed to have drawn a
portion of his inspiration, from the "Etudes." As a work of science it
contains many errors. These, particularly his theory of the tides,(*)
St. Pierre maintained to the last, and so eloquently, that it was said
at the time, to be impossible to unite less reason with more logic.

(*) Occasioned, according to St. Pierre, by the melting of
the ice at the Poles.

In "Paul and Virginia," he was supremely fortunate in his subject. It
was an entirely new creation, uninspired by any previous work; but which
gave birth to many others, having furnished the plot to six theatrical
pieces. It was a subject to which the author could bring all his
excellences as a writer and a man, while his deficiencies and defects
were necessarily excluded. In no manner could he incorporate politics,
science, or misapprehension of persons, while his sensibility, morals,
and wonderful talent for description, were in perfect accordance with,