and the every-day things which went on under his eyes, and everyone
else's. And all gentlemen, from the Weald of Kent to the Vale of
Blackmore, shrugged their shoulders mysteriously, and said, "Poor
fellow!" till they opened the book itself, and discovered to their
surprise that it read like any novel. And then came a burst of
confused, but honest admiration; from the young squire's "Bless me!
who would have thought that there were so many wonderful things to
be seen in one's own park!" to the old squire's more morally
valuable "Bless me! why, I have seen that and that a hundred times,
and never thought till now how wonderful they were!"

There were great excuses, though, of old, for the contempt in which
the naturalist was held; great excuses for the pitying tone of
banter with which the Spectator talks of "the ingenious" Don
Saltero (as no doubt the Neapolitan gentleman talked of Ferrante
Imperato the apothecary, and his museum); great excuses for
Voltaire, when he classes the collection of butterflies among the
other "bizarreries de l'esprit humain." For, in the last
generation, the needs of the world were different. It had no time
for butterflies and fossils. While Buonaparte was hovering on the
Boulogne coast, the pursuits and the education which were needed
were such as would raise up men to fight him; so the coarse,
fierce, hard-handed training of our grandfathers came when it was
wanted, and did the work which was required of it, else we had not
been here now. Let us be thankful that we have had leisure for
science; and show now in war that our science has at least not
unmanned us.

Moreover, Natural History, if not fifty years ago, certainly a
hundred years ago, was hardly worthy of men of practical common