consciousness of our own strength, and the results of past experience. Amidst every difficulty of situation, there is scarcely any path of active or contemplative life, in which we have not pushed our way, whether for purposes of profit or of pleasure, with more or less success. of influences totally distinct from any in the old world, whether We are placed within the sphere in relation to government, society, or the aspect of external nature. Some of these influences may be considered eminently favorable to intellectual action, and the bold and unchecked display of nature in all its eccentricity. Although a young people, moreover, we are furnished with an old and highly finished language, capable of conveying, in all its freshness, every variety of impression produced on us by the novelties of our situation.

With regard to the disastrous operation of foreign competition on our domestic industry, such are our natural buoyancy and enterprise, that it has hitherto been found to stimulate rather than depress it, in every department, whether physical or moral, to which it has been directed. Our popular patronage, too, though not on the same scale with that of the old world, has hitherto proved perfectly competent to the protection of works of real excellence. We may add, that our capacity for such productions in the highest kinds of ornamental literature, and in the collateral pursuit of the fine arts, opposed as they may seem to be to our habitual direction, is well illustrated by the fact, that we claim as our countrymen two of the most eminent writers of fiction of the present day, by the admission of the English themselves, Irving and Cooper, and three of the most distinguished artists, Allston, Leslie, and Newton.

We will only remark in conclusion, what cannot be repeated too often, that the American writer, if he would aspire to the credit of originality, must devote his days and nights to the study of the models around him. Not that he should relinquish the rich inheritance which English genius has bequeathed to him, in common with his brethren across the water. But, however enriched the mould may be by foreign culture, the product of his fancy should be no exotic, but spring from native seed, if it would come to healthy maturity. The English writer may copy from books with less harm than the American, because he has the original models of these books around him, by which to correct his copies. But an American drawing from the same sources will, at best, produce but a

second-hand imitation of nature. If he would be original, he must study the volume which nature herself has unrolled before him.

I.B.O. Prabody.

ART. IX.-Habits of Insects.

Insect Architecture. Insect Transformations. Insect Miscellanies. London. 1831.

We never have had the honor of an intimacy with our fellowcreatures of the insect race; and have occasionally found their personal attentions so troublesome, that we should have been willing to drop their acquaintance altogether. Since this may not be, and we must tolerate them, whether we like their company or not, we feel grateful to those, who by their patient and searching investigations, discover the habits and characters of these creatures, which, though they have much to reward attention, have but few attractions to invite it. We can understand the passion which leads such men as Audubon and Nuttall to encounter the evils of solitude, hardship, and privation, and to feel well rewarded by the discovery of a new bird or flower, better than the self-devotion of such men as Réaumur to the study of the insect race, the greater proportion of which seem like an unlovely rabble, having few claims upon the gratitude or affection of man. But our hasty impressions on this subject, as well as most others, would mislead us; for these philosophers have opened golden mines of discovery in this unpromising soil, and unfolded some of the most striking evidences of divine wisdom ever presented to man, in this part of the creation, on which many will not dare or deign to look. They have not labored, however, wholly without reward; for the curious facts, made known by Huber and many others, have awakened a general interest in the subject; it is now embraced within the demands of education; it is used also by friends to human improvement, to inspire a general thirst for knowledge, which, once inspired, easily directs itself to the channels in which it can move to most advantage. It is important to take care, that the popular demand for information shall be well supplied. There is some cause to apprehend, that popular works shall be manufactured for the booksellers, which, like the broth sometimes provided for the poor in cities in seasons of famine, shall answer the double purpose of satisfying their hunger for

the present, and removing all temptation they might have to apply again.

These works, however, are not of a description to strengthen these fears. They appear to have been prepared for the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, by the English naturalist, Mr. Rennie, whose reputation is generally known. His favorite maxim is, that Natural History must be studied, not in human abridgements and compilations, but in the great book of Nature. This plan of field-study requires, to be sure, more earnestness and diligence than every one possesses; it is not every one, either, who has leisure or advantages of situation for pursuing it; still he is doubtless right in saying, that the study of books is apt to be a study of words and not of things, and that a few facts, learned from personal observation, will inspire more interest and enthusiasm, than the study of books for years. His remarks probably are meant to point out the proper education for a naturalist,-for one who is to enter deeply into the subject; but the great majority of readers, while they do not wish to be wholly uninformed, must, from the necessity of the case, take the observations of others upon trust. They will easily persuade themselves to submit to this necessity, if all the authorities upon which they are compelled to rely, are as entertaining and instructive as the author of the works before us.

We observe that Mr. Rennie, like other entomologists, Linnæus among the rest, has thought it necessary to maintain the dignity of the study. There is no great necessity for filing this protest against the common feeling, which arises from ignorance, and disappears as fast as the means of making themselves acquainted with this subject have been offered to the world. There is something sufficiently comic in seeing a man holding forth, with the eloquence of Cicero, upon the wonders and beauties of an insect's wing; we are struck with the physical disproportion between the investigator and his subject; but we do not doubt, all the while, that he has found something fully worthy the attention of an enlightened mind; there are smiles which are perfectly consistent with respect, and playful satire with which no one needs feel insulted. There is no great malice in such ridicule as this, and it is rather forbearing than otherwise, when it is considered what language the enthusiasts in the science have sometimes used. One of the most distinguished among them was so lost in

rapture at contemplating the evolutions of a party of insects upon the wing, that they reminded him of nothing less than seraphs and sons of light, shining in the glories of their heavenly state; a comparison quite too lofty for the occasion, and one which the most ambitious insect would confess was quite beyond his pretensions. Apart from the disposition which men have to exalt their favorite pursuit, it is well known that the spirit of philosophical investigation, whether it directs itself to beast, bird, or flower, or, as is generally the case, includes them all, is one which is seldom found, except in enlightened and active minds. It affords to such minds a pursuit, in its lower stages harmless and happy, and in its higher efforts requiring intellectual exertion sufficient to recommend it to great men, as a field in which their powers may be worthily and religiously employed.

The advantage of supplying means of happiness to men is not generally understood; and yet, in ordinary circumstances, whatever makes men happier makes them better; a fact which has hitherto been strangely overlooked by moralists, but now begins to be regarded as one of the most important principles of moral reform by those who would root out prevailing vices, and supply men with those inducements and encouragements, without which they will do nothing even for their own welfare. Most men are driven to lawless pleasure by vacancy of mind,by the torture of a mind, preying upon itself for want of foreign materials to act upon; and as learning has been regarded as quite beyond the common reach, none but minds highly cultivated, or very energetic by nature, have been able to find a sufficient number of worthy objects to engage them. Action is as important to the mind, as it was to eloquence in the opinion of the great master of the art; action the mind must have, right or wrong; it is well if it can find ways in which its activity may be exerted without running to waste or bringing injury to itself or others, and whoever points out such ways, not to the enlightened few only, but makes them so plain, that all the world can see them, deserves to be regarded as the greatest reformer of popular vices, because he destroys the root of the evil, while others have been laboring without success upon the branches, which spring again with new vigor, as fast as they are hewn away. Even when the mind is most inactive, an action, though not voluntary, is going on in it, which tends fast to its injury and corruption; its calm, like

that of the waters, if it endure for any length of time, becomes stagnation; and this is a danger to which men are the more exposed, because the mind never seems so rapt, so absorbed in meditation, as when it is thinking of nothing at all. Cowper has well described the solemn aspect of the dreamer, gazing upon the evening fire, looking as if he were deliberating upon the fate of nations, while nothing that deserves to be honored with the name of a thought, passes through his mind for hours together. So, too, in a solitary walk, which is generally supposed to be so favorable to thought, the mind gives itself up to reverie, without exerting itself to any good purpose. Now, if the naturalist can make men attentive and observant,-if he can make them note the construction and contrivances of insects, in which instinct seems sometimes to surpass intelligence in the skill and success of its operations,-if he can make them regard the beauty of the delicate flower, which they used to crush beneath their feet, or induce them to listen to the song and observe the plumage of the bird, which formerly, if not a 'good shot,' was nothing to them, he will afford to them a never-failing source of enjoyment, and secure to his favorite sciences the benefit of many useful facts and observations.

Insects are now a formidable body, and were much more so in former times, when their habits and persons were less familiarly known. Men had not begun to ask whence they came, nor whither they were going; but they found them when they least desired their company, and there was a sort of mystery in their movements, which, more than any thing else, tends to inspire the feeling of dread. It was on this account that they were first distinguished by the name of bug, which, however it may have degenerated into a watchword of contempt at the present day, was formerly synonymous with ghost or spectre, and equally alarming. The passage of scripture from the Psalms, Thou shalt not nede to be afraide of any bug by night,' as it stood in Matthews's old English Bible, is probably known to our readers. Later translators have judiciously substituted a more general word in its stead. But even now, considering their power to destroy our peace, there is some reason to fear them, and were there nothing else formidable about them, their numbers are sufficiently alarming. When we hear their concert on a summer evening, it sounds as if every leaf and every blade of grass had found a voice; though, in fact, there is no voice in the matter. They deal