It has frequently happened that, while works of deep importance have justly conferred celebrity upon the author, his minor productions have been entirely indebted to his name for their popularity, and to his authority for their value. This, however, cannot be said of Salmonia, for it possesses the stamp of original genius, and bears internal evidence of a talent flowing down from a very high source of intelligence. In a scientific point of view, it exhibits that penetrating observation by which a gifted mind is enabled to extract out of the most ordinary facts and every-day incidents, novel views and hidden truths; while it shows that a humble art (I beg pardon of the brothers of the Angle) may, through the skill of the master, be made the means of calling forth the affections of the heart, and of reflecting all the colours of the fancy. By regarding the work in relation to the history and condition of its author, it certainly acquires much additional interest. The familiar and inviting style of the dialogue, whenever he discusses questions of natural history, must convince us that he was as well calculated to instruct in the Lyceum, as we long since knew him to be to teach in the Academy. Composed in the hour of sickness and prostration, the work displays throughout its composition a tone of dignified morality and an expansion of feeling, which may be regarded as in unison with a mind chastened but not subdued, and looking forward to a better state of existence. "I envy," says he, "no quality of the mind or intellect in others; be it genius, power, wit, or fancy: but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness; creates new hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair!" While describing an animated scene of insect enjoyment, he bursts into an apostrophe, highly characteristic of that quick and happy talent for seizing analogies, which so eminently distinguished all his writings. I shall quote the passage.