. LETTER DAVID MALLET, ESQ. TO LORD HYDE. “MY LORD,—I received a very real pleasure, and at the same time a sensible concern, from the letter your lordship has honoured me with. Nothing could be more agreeable to me than the favourable opinion of one, whom I have long admired for every quality that enters into an estimable and amiable character; but then nothing can occasion me more uneasiness than not to be able to suppress that part of a work which you would have kept from public view. "The book was printed off before your lordship's letter reached my hands; but this consideration alone would have appeared trifling to me. I apprehend that I cannot, without being unfaithful to the trust reposed in me, omit or alter any thing in those works, which my Lord Bolingbroke had deliberately prepared for the press, and I will publish no other. As to this in particular, his repeated commands to me were, that it should be printed exactly according to the copy he himself, in all the leisure of retirement, had corrected with that view. "Upon the whole, if your lordship should think it necessary to disclaim the reflections on Sacred History, by which I presume is meant some public and authentic declaration, that your notions on this head differ entirely from those of your noble friend; even in this case I am sure you will do it with all the delicacy natural to your own disposition, and with all the tenderness to his memory, that the particular regard he always bore you can deserve. I am, with the greatest respect, my lord," &c. THE PREFACE ΤΟ DOCTOR BROOKES'S NEW AND ACCURATE SYSTEM OF NATURAL HISTORY. PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR MDCCLXIII. Of all the studies which have employed the industrious or amused the idle, perhaps Natural History deserves the preference; other sciences generally terminate in doubt, or rest in bare speculation, but here every step is marked with certainty, and, while a description of the objects around us teaches to supply our wants, it satisfies our curiosity. The multitude of Nature's productions, however, seems at first to bewilder the inquirer, rather than excite his attention: the various wonders of the animal, vegetable, or mineral world, seem to exceed all powers of computation, and the science appears barren from its amazing fertility. But a nearer acquaintance with this study, by giving method to our researches, points out a similitude in many objects which at first appeared different; the mind, by degrees, rises to consider the things before it in general lights, till, at length, it finds Nature, in almost every instance, acting with her usual simplicity. Among the number of philosophers who, undaunted by their supposed variety, have attempted to give a description of the productions of nature, Aristotle deserves the first place. This great philosopher was furnished, by his pupil Alexander, with all that the then known world could produce to complete his design. By such parts of his work as have escaped the wreck of time, it appears that he understood nature more clearly, and in a more comprehensive manner, than even the present age, enlightened as it is with so many later discoveries, can boast. His design appears vast, and his knowledge extensive: he only considers things in general lights, and leaves every subject when it becomes too minute or remote to be useful. In his History of Animals he first describes man, and makes him a standard with which to compare the deviations in every more imperfect kind that is to follow. But if he has excelled in the history of each, he, together with Pliny and Theophrastus, has failed in the exactness of their descriptions. There are many creatures described by those naturalists of antiquity, which are so imperfectly characterized, that it is impossible to tell to what animal now subsisting we can refer the description. This is an unpardonable neglect, and alone sufficient to depreciate their merits; but their credulity, and the mutilations they have suffered by time, have rendered them still less useful, and justify each subsequent attempt to improve what they have left behind. The most laborious, as well as the most voluminous naturalist among the moderns, is Aldrovandus. He was furnished with every requisite for making an extensive body of Natural History. He was learned and rich, and, during the course of a long life, indefatigable and accurate. But his works are insupportably tedious and disgusting, filled with unnecessary quotations and unimportant digressions. Whatever learning he had he was willing should be known, and, unwearied himself, he supposed his readers could never tire; in short, he appears a useful assistant to those who would compile a body of Natural History, but is utterly unsuited to such as only wish to read it with profit and delight. Gesner and Johnson, willing to abridge the voluminous productions of Aldrovandus, have attempted to reduce Natural History into method, but their efforts have been so incomplete as scarcely to deserve mentioning. Their attempts were improved upon some time after, by Mr Ray, whose method we have adopted in the History of Quadrupeds, Birds, and Fishes, which is to follow. No systematical writer has been more happy than he in reducing Natural History into a form, at once the shortest, yet most comprehensive. The subsequent attempts of Mr Klein and Linnæus, it is |