“Nor were the simple sounds by which he expressed the singleness of his heart at all fitted to flatter him into that fond sense of superiority over the beings whom the unreasoning insolence of cultivated ages absurdly styles _mute_. I say absurdly styles _mute_; for with what propriety can that name be applied, for example, to the little sirens of the groves, to whom Nature has granted the strains of ravishment--the soul of song? Those charming warblers who pour forth, with a moving melody which human ingenuity vies with in vain, their loves, their anxiety, their woes. In the ardour and delicacy of his amorous expressions, can the most impassioned, the most respectful, human lover surpass the ‘glossy kind,’ as described by the most beautiful of all our poets? “And, indeed, has not Nature given to almost every being the same spontaneous signs of the various affections? Admire we not in other animals whatever is most eloquent in man--the tremor of desire, the tear of distress, the piercing cry of anguish, the pity-pleading look--expressions which speak to the soul with a feeling which words are feeble to convey?” The whole of the little book of which the above extracts are properly representative, breathes the spirit of a true religion. We shall only add that it exhibits almost as much learning and valuable research as it exhibits justness of thought and sensibility--enriched, as it is, by copious illustrative notes.[202] XXXIV. HUFELAND. 1762-1836. Not entitled to rank among the greater prophets who have had the penetration to recognise the _essential_ barbarism, no less than the unnaturalness, of Kreophagy (disguised, as it is, by the arts of civilisation), this most popular of all German physicians, with the Cornaros and Abernethys, may yet claim considerable merit as having, in some degree, sought to stem the tide of unnatural living, which, under less gross forms indeed than those of the darker ages of dietetics, and partially concealed in the refinements of Art, is more difficult to be resisted by reason of its very disguise. If the renaissance of Pythagorean dietetics had already dawned for the deeper thinkers, the age of science and of reason, as regards the mass of accredited teachers, was yet a long way off; and to all pioneers, even though they failed to clear the way entirely, some measure of our gratitude is due.