II.-1. Greece under the Romans. A Historical View of the Condition of the Greek Nation, from the time of its Conquest by the Romans, until the Extinction of the Roman Empire in the East. B.C. 146-A.D. 717. By George Finlay, K.R.G. Edinburgh and London, 2. The History of Greece, from its Conquest by the Cru- saders, to its Conquest by the Turks, and of the Em- pire of Trebizond. 1204-1461. By George Finlay. 3. History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, from 716 to 1453. By George Finlay. 2 Vols. Edin- III-1. I Valdesi: Ossiano i Cristiani-Cattolici secondo la Chiesa Primitiva. Per Amedeo Bert. Torino, 1849. 2. Histoire de l'Eglise Vaudoise, depuis son origine, et des Vaudois du Piémont jusqu'a nos jours. Par An- toine Monastier. Deux Tomes. Toulouse, 1847. 3. An Enquiry into the History and Theology of the ancient Vallenses and Albigenses. By George Stanley IV.-1. Census of Great Britain in 1851. By Authority of the Registrar-General. London, 1854. 2. Census of Great Britain-1851. Religious Worship in England and Wales. By Horace Mann. London, V.-1. Oxford Reform, and Oxford Professors. By Henry Halford Vaughan, M.A., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. London, 1854. 2. University Reform: A Speech delivered in the House of Commons, on the Oxford Reform Bill, on 27th April 1854. By Edward Horsman, Esq., M.P. 3. National Faith considered in reference to Endow- ments. By H. A. Woodgate, B.D., late Fellow and Tutor of St. John's College, Oxford. London, 1854. 4. Objections to the Government Scheme for the Present Subjection and Future Management of the University of Oxford. By Charles Neate, M.A., Fellow of Oriel VI.-Evidence before the Committee on Public-Houses, 1853, VII.-1. Reliquiæ Antiquæ: Scraps from Ancient Manu- scripts, illustrating chiefly early English Literature and the English Language. Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., and James Orchard Halliwell, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. Two Vols. Lon- don, John Russell Smith, 1845. 2. The Illustrated Book of English Songs, from the Six- teenth to the Nineteenth Century. Illustrated London 3. Songs from the Dramatists. Edited by Robert Bell. London, John W. Parker and Son, 1854, 2. Habits and Men; with Remnants of Records touch- ing the Makers of both. By Dr. Doran, Author of "Table Traits," &c. London, 1854, IX.-1. The Museum of Science and Art. Edited by Diony- sius Lardner, D.C.L. On the Electric Telegraph. 2. Mémoire de la Télégraphe Electrique. Par M. Wer- ner Siemens, (de Berlin,) Ancien Officier D'Artillerie. THE NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. NOVEMBER, 1854. ART. I.-1. A Popular History of British Zoophytes or Corallines. By the Rev. D. LANDSBOROUGH, D.D., A.L.S., &c., &c. London, 1852. 2. A Popular History of British Sea-weeds, comprising their Structure, Fructification, Specific Characters, Arrangement, and General Distribution, with Notices of some of the Fresh-water Alga. By the Rev. D. LANDSBOROUGH, A.L.S., &c., &c. Lond 1851. 3. Gosse's Rambles of a Naturalist on the Devonshire Coast. (Van Voorst.) London, 1852. 4. Gosse's Aquarium. (Van Voorst.) London, 1854. 5. The Sea-side Book. By Professor HARVEY. (Van Voorst.) London, 1849. 6. Things of the Sea Coast. By ANN PRATT. (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.) London, 1850. THE study of Natural History has become now-a-days an honourable one; and the successful investigator of the minutest animals takes his place unquestioned among the men of genius, and, like the philosopher of old Greece, is considered, by virtue of his science, fit company for dukes and princes. Nay, the study is now more than honourable; it is even fashionable. Thanks to the works which head this Article, and to innumerable others on kindred branches of science which have appeared of late, every well-educated person is bound to know somewhat, at least, of the wondrous organic forms which surround him in every sunbeam and every pebble; and if Mr. Gosse's presages be correct, a few years more will see every clever young lady with her "aquarium," and live sea-anemones and algae will supplant "crochet" and Berlin wool. Happy consummation when women's imagination shall be content with admiring Nature's real beauties, instead of concealing their own idleness VOL. XXII. to the injury of poor starving needlewomen, by creating ghastly and unartistic caricatures of them. The books which head our Article have been chosen out of very many, not because they are the only good ones, but because they are the best with which we are acquainted. Of them, perhaps, the best for a beginner is Professor Harvey's "Seaside Book," of which we cannot speak too highly; and most pleasant is it to see a man of genius and learning thus gathering the bloom of all his varied knowledge, to put it into a form as well suited for a child as for a savant. We never, perhaps, met with a book in which so vast a quantity of facts had been compressed into so small a space, and yet told so gracefully, simply, without a taint of pedantry or cumbrousness. Miss Pratt's "Things of the Sea Coast" is very good also, especially for younger children. And what Mr. Gosse's works will be like, all may judge who know his "Beasts, Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes," the best and cheapest manual of zoology which as yet exists; and his two delightful books, "The Canadian Naturalist," and the "Tour in Jamaica," in which he has done for the American forests, and the West India islands, what White did for his Selbourne, dear old Bartram the Quaker for Florida, and Darwin for the Pacific, namely, brought before us not merely the names of flowers and animals, but their living ways and works, and the scenery in which they dwell, so as to carry the reader away in imagination to the place itself, as if by some ever-shifting diorama, at once exciting and satisfying the thirst for foreign travel. Dr. Landsborough's two little books are excellent manuals, with well-drawn and coloured plates, for the comfort of those to whom a scientific nomenclature (as liable itself to be faulty and obscure, as every other human thing) conveys but a vague conception of the objects, and may serve, for the beginner, as good and cheap preparations for Professor Harvey's greater work on the sea-weeds, and for the new edition of Professor Johnston's invaluable "British Zoophytes." And it is with great pleasure that we watch these books, and many other excellent ones on other branches of Natural History, finding their way more and more into drawing-rooms and school-roons, and exciting daily greater thirst for a knowledge which, even twenty years ago, was considered superfluous for all but the professional student. Since these pages were written, we have had to deplore the death of this pious and learned man, from cholera, at Saltcoats, the scene of his ministry. He knows now, we doubt not, the true meaning of many a wonder which he once saw only "through a glass darkly," but now face to face, in the light of Him who created them. Rise of Popular Science. 3 What a change from the temper of two generations since, when the naturalist was looked on as a harmless enthusiast, who went "bug-hunting," simply because he had not spirit to follow a fox. There are those now alive who can recollect an amiable man being literally bullied out of the New Forest, because he dared to make a collection (now, we believe, in some unknown abyss of that great Avernus, the British Museum) of fossil shells from those very Hordle Cliffs, for exploring which there is now established a society of subscribers and correspondents. They can remember, too, when, on the first appearance of Bewick's "British Birds," the excellent sportsman who brought it down to the forest, was asked, Why on earth he had bought a book about "cock-sparrows?" and had to justify himself again and again, simply by lending the book to his brother sportsmen, to convince them that there were rather more than a dozen sorts of birds (as they then held) indigenous to Hampshire. But the book, perhaps, which turned the tide in favour of Natural History, among the higher classes at least, in the south of England, was White's "History of Selbourne." A Hampshire gentleman and sportsman, whom everybody knew, had taken the trouble to write a book about the birds and the weeds in his own parish, and the everyday-things which went on under his eyes, and everyone else's. And all gentlemen, from the Weald of Kent to the Vale of Blackmoor, 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 gentlemen talked of Ferrante Imperato the apothecary, and his museum;) great excuses for Voltaire, when he classes the collection of butterflies among the other "bigarrures 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; and the coarse, fierce, hardhanded training of our grandfathers came when it was wanted, and did the work which was |