have no relation to science properly so called, but present alternately the most superstitious impressions, or the declamations of a peevish philosophy, which is continually accusing man, nature, and the gods themselves. The facts which he accumulates ought not, therefore, to be considered in connexion with the opinion which he forms of them; but, on the contrary, ought to be restored in imagination to the writers from whom he has derived them; and the rules of criticism should be applied agreeably to what we know of those writers, and the circumstances in which they were placed. Studied in this manner, the Natural History of Pliny is one of the richest stores; it being, according to his own statement, composed of extracts from more than 2000 volumes, written by authors of all kinds, travellers, historians, geographers, philosophers, and physicians,--authors of whom there remain to us only about forty, and of several of whom we have merely fragments, or works different from those which Pliny used; and, even of those whose labours are lost to us, there are many whose names have escaped from oblivion only through the quotations which he has made from them. On comparing his extracts with such originals as we still have, and in particular with Aristotle, we find that he was by no means accustomed to select the parts that were most important or most correct. In general, he fixes upon the singular or marvellous; upon those circumstances which answer best for the contrasts which he is fond of making, or for the reproaches which he so often prefers against Providence. He certainly does not place the same confidence in all that he relates; but his doubts and affirmations are made at random, and the most childish stories are not those that most excite his incredulity. For example, there are none of the fables of the Grecian travellers, about headless and mouthless men, men with only one foot, or men with large ears, that he does not place in his seventh book, and with so much confidence in their truth, that he concludes his enumeration with this remark: _Haec atque talia ex hominum genere, ludibria sibi, nobis miracula, ingeniosa fecit natura_: "See how nature is disposed for the nones to devise full wittily in this and such like pastimes to play with mankind, thereby not onely to make herselfe merrie, but to set us a wondering at such strange miracles." Any one may judge, from this credulity in respect to the absurd fables about the human species, of the little discernment which he must have exercised in selecting testimonies respecting exotic or little-known animals. Accordingly, the most fabulous creatures, manticores, with the head of a man and the tail of a scorpion, winged horses, catoblepas, the mere sight of which caused death, occupy their station by the side of the elephant and lion. However, all is not false even in those articles which are most replete with falsehoods. We can sometimes come at the truths which have given rise to them, by