“He spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.”—1 KINGS iv. 33. WE learn from his own words that king Solomon, amid all his magnificence and glory, found nothing truly satisfying to his spirit. He discovered that silver and gold, and costly apparel, and singing men and singing women, with all the luxuries of the East, sufficed not to give him happiness. They did not even keep him amused: he wanted something better. And a purer, more refined, and enduring delight was tasted by him when he turned the powers of his active and inquiring mind to the investigation of nature, the works of God’s hands, in the diversified and beautiful productions of the fields, woods, and lakes of Judea. He sought them out diligently, and then he “spake of” them—spake of the richly-varied productions of the animal kingdom, and “spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.” Very interesting it must have been to hear the great Solomon speaking of these works of God’s hands, and no wonder the sacred writers have recorded the fact. Most edifying of all to the thoughtful part of his audience it would be to reflect on the moral phenomenon he himself presented—taking his refreshment, his recreation, his pleasure, after the toils and disappointments of riches and of worldly honours, in considering the lilies, how they grew, and the fowls of the air, how God cared for them. But if Solomon found, in this pursuit, a relief from ennui and satiety, how many, in all succeeding times, have found therein support and consolation amidst inevitable anxieties and painful trials. There have been persons who declared that it was the study of nature alone which made their condition tolerable, by diverting their minds from painful and oppressive thoughts. It must have been the same experience which caused Palissy, amid the terrible scenes of his day, to retire into his cabinet, or to wander in the roadside, among the fields and caves, searching after “things note-worthy and monstrous,” which he “took from the womb of the earth,” and placed among his other treasures, the accumulated hoard of long years. We find him the same Bernard still—unaltered by time and change of fortune; as simple-minded, as diligent in research, and as enthusiastic in utterance as at Saintes, in the days of his youth. He had found, too, some congenial associates and friends. Among them, we have seen, was Ambroise Paré, who had a great taste for natural history, and himself possessed a collection of valuable and curious specimens, especially of foreign birds, for which he was principally indebted to Charles IX., who used to send him many of the rarest and most valuable he obtained, to preserve. [Picture: Palissy exploring a quarry]