"
And the true student, in Ruskin's words, stands on an eminence from which
he looks back on the universe of God and forward over the generations of
men.
Even if it be true that science was dry when it was buried in huge folios,
that is certainly no longer the case now; and Lord Chesterfield's wise
wish, that Minerva might have three graces as well as Venus, has been
amply fulfilled.
The study of natural history indeed seems destined to replace the loss of
what is, not very happily I think, termed "sport;" engraven in us as it is
by the operation of thousands of years, during which man lived greatly on
the produce of the chase. Game is gradually becoming "small by degrees and
beautifully less." Our prehistoric ancestors hunted the mammoth, the
woolly-haired rhinoceros, and Irish elk; the ancient Britons had the wild
ox, the deer, and the wolf. We have still the pheasant, the partridge, the
fox, and the hare; but even these are becoming scarcer, and must be
preserved first, in order that they may be killed afterwards.
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