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justly regarded as more favourable than any in the island for the pursuit of this delightful study. Indeed, it would not be easy to determine, why a higher state of advancement has not been attained; and the difficulty is much increased when we consider, that, in addition to the great facility which this most picturesque district affords for the practical pursuit of the science, the Professorship of Natural History has already been held for several years by the assiduous and intelligent gentleman, of whom I have spoken so

much.

I am inclined to attribute this to the joint operation of a great number of causes; but I observe, that Professor Jhimself considers the too engrossing influence of the law as being the most immediate and effectual of all the dampers under which his favourite study has so long languished. Most of the young men of this city are trained up either as barristers or attornies; and it very unfortunately happens, that all more liberal pursuits, (both classical and scientific,) so far from being much respected or held in estimation by these classes of men, are, for the most part, regarded as quite inconsistent with a diligent discharge of their professional

duties and functions. Professor J informs me, that three-fourths of the students who attend his lectures, are strangers and students of medicine, chiefly English. Those of the last mentioned faculty, who are indigenous to Scotland, have, till very lately at least, either procured appointments in regiments stationed in foreign quarters, or retired to distant corners of the country, where the entire absence of books, and the laborious and unsettled life enjoyed, or rather endured, by rural practitioners, have been more than sufficient to extinguish every spark of science, which might have been kindled in their bosoms during their attendance at the University. And thus, though very great and increasing benefits are derived by the students of this science in Edinburgh, from the zeal and talents of Professor J, and other causes, it would seem that the science must, for a considerable time, look for its best fruits in the south. I rejoice to find that the English students who resort to this place, are duly impressed with a sense of the advantages which they enjoy.

I dined with Professor J

yesterday, with

a small party of his most distinguished pupils. Among these there was one whom the Profes

sor particularly introduced me to-a Mr James Wn, brother to the poet. This young gentleman follows the profession of a Writer to the Signet, (which, as I have told you, is the name for the highest class of attornies in Edinburgh); but forms, as Mr J assured me, a brilliant exception to the neglect with which matters of science are commonly treated by the members of the profession. He is very young-many years junior to his more celebrated brother, and no casual observer would suspect them to be of the same family. I have already described to you the exterior of the poet; James is a thin, pale, slender, contemplative-looking person, with hair of rather a dark colour, and extremely short-sighted. In his manners also, he is as different as possible from his brother; his voice is low, and his whole demeanour as still as can be imagined. In conversation he attempts no kind of display; but seems to possess a very peculiar vein of dry humour, which renders him extremely diverting. Notwithstanding all these differences, however, I could easily trace a great similarity in the construction of the bones of their two faces; and, indeed, there is nothing more easy to imagine, than that, with much of the same original powers

and propensities, some casual enough circumstances may have been sufficient to decide, that the one of the brothers should be a poet, and the other a naturalist. The parts of the science of which Mr James Wn is fondest, are Ornithology and Entomology-studies so delightful to every true lover of nature, that, I suspect, they are, in some measure, practically familiar to every poet who excels in depicting the manifestations, and in tracing the spirit of beauty in the external universe. Professor J, indeed, informed me, that his young friend is, in truth, no less a poet than a naturalist-that he possesses a fine genius for versification, and has already published several little pieces of exquisite beauty, although he has not ventured to give his name along with them.

On leaving the professor's, Mr W―n and I adjourned to this house (where, by the way, Mr Oman enjoys very little of my company,) and had a quiet bowl of punch together, and a great deal of conversation respecting subjects connected with the science in which he so greatly excels, and for which I myself, albeit nothing of an adept, have long entertained a special partiality. Among other topics, the brumal retreat of the swallow was handled at considerable length. Mr

W-n I find rather inclined to that theory, which would represent Africa as the principal winter-depot of at least several of the speciesthe Hirundo, Apus, and Rustica, in particular; and he adduced, in confirmation of this, a passage from Herodotus, which I had never before heard pointed out with a view to this subjectaccording to which, one kind of swallow (from the description, he seemed to suppose it must be the Swift,) remains in Egypt throughout the whole year δι' έτεος εοντες εκ απολείπεσι, I have never, indeed, met with any man who seemed to possess a greater power of illustrating subjects of natural history, by quotations from writers of all kinds, and in particular from the poets. Milton and Wordsworth, above all, he appears to have completely by heart; and it was wonderfully delightful to me to hear matters, which are commonly discussed in the driest of all possible methods, treated of in so graceful a manner by one who is so much skilled in them. Nothing could be more refreshing than to hear some minute details about birds and insects, interrupted and illuminated by a fragment of grand melancholy music from the Paradise Lost, or the Excursion.

I shall have occasion to say a great deal more

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