11 JUNE 1831, Page 18

NEW BOOKS.

(Montagu's Ornithological Dic-

ORNITHOLOGY. tIonary of British Birds. Edited

} by James Bennie, A M., A.L.S.

TRAVELS {Dr. Beattie's Journal of a Resi-

dence at Courts in Germany, 2 vols.

In 1822, 1825, and 1826 Pastoral Instructions. By Dr I Jebb, Bishop of Limerick (

GEOGUAPUY." Arrowsmith's Eton Ancient and I

Modern Geography Pournv ....... Miss Strickland's Enthusiasm Hurst and Co.

THZOLOOV

Longman and Co. Duncan.

For the Author. Smith and Elder.

THE SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

MR. RENNIE, the Professor of Natural History in the embryo in- stitution of King's College (Professors are now appointed in futuro, like Bishops in partibus—it is easier to create professors than classes, bishops than dioceses), has reedited Colonel MONTAGU'S Ornithological Dictionary. It was previously the readiest and best- arranged book of reference for descriptions of British birds ; and it has now left the hands of Mr. RENNIE greatly improved, and much more complete. Mr. RENNIE is qualified for this kind of work, as may have been seen in his Architecture of Birds. He neither wants industry; nor information and observation,—all that are re- quired for works of the class he has undertaken. He is likewise the author of a paper in the last number of that valuable periodi- cal, the Journal of the Royal Institution, on the contrivances of animals to secure warmth ; which is, to say the least, amusing. Who, indeed, can take pains in observing, collecting, and recording the facts of natural history, and not be able to arrest the attention by a collection of interesting intelligence ? To the Ornithological Dictionary Mr. RENNIE has prefixed a Dissertation on Systems, more especially the Quinary System of several eminent English ornithologists. Mr. RENNIE conceives, that because he is elected Professor in an institution patronized by Bishops, he must be, or seem, over-righteous. A spirit of into- lerance in theological matters, and a proneness to cast about odious accusations of impiety, is the worst feature of English controversy ; it has been the disgrace and the destruction of our national science. But Mr. RENNIE is determined to make good his position in the College; and what he wants in zoology, he seems resolved to make up in piety, and to display the manner in which, should occasion be wanting, he will convert science into theological bile. In this introduction, he has attacked the system of arranging birds, origi- nated by Mr. MACLEAY, and carried into a state of greater deve- lopment by Mr. VIGORS, as "Atheistical," and connected with "French philosophy." A man who uses arguments of this kind appeals to the prejudices and ignorance of his auditors' and the reasoner who resorts to names which have been known for thirty or forty years to be the signal of general obscuration, evidently does not wish to remain in the light. To set up a cry, is a very easy thing; and we should not be surprised if Mr. RENNIE were capable of it : but every one understands the position of a contro- versialist who only aims at opening the flood-gates of popular abuse. Whatever may be the fate of the parties, one thing is sure to go to the bottom, and that is the science. We may be sure that the writer who begins to talk of "Atheism" and "French philo- sophy" has no real excellence in his subject, or he is so influenced by envy and vanity that he prefers the destruction of his adversary to the progress of knowledge. Mr. RENNIE is, however, unfortunate in his enemies : they hap- pen to be men against whom the charges of impiety and atheism will not stick,—for the best of reasons, that scarcely a single writing they have published is not conceived in a spirit of piety, and that their characters stand above all fear of stain. But what a test is this to bring a scientific investigation to! We cannot give Mr. RENNIE credit for maintaining honest ob- jections against the Q uinary System on the ground of impiety : if he were sincere, the conclusion would be so cruel against his powers of intelligence, that we would rather suspect him of spite than im- becility. Surely there can be no impiety in endeavouring to dis- cover the natural order of creation ; and a man who observed upon such an investigation, that it was dictating to the Deity, would only be laughed at as an khappg from Bedlam, if he did not in the same breath cry out, "French philosophy ! Atheism !" Mr. MACLEAY has said that "The nearest approach of the mammalia to the bird, exists among the glires ; which make several attempts, wit were, to attain the structure of the feathered class." Now this is flat Atheism : this is the language of ROBINET, LAMARCK, and God knows what impious French philosopher. Is not the animal 'here represented as joining in its own creation, and regulat- ing in a measure the form and functions it is to assume? "Un- less," observes Mr. RENNIE on this passage, "the Creator be dis- carded altogether, in what are we to understand this doctrine ? " We may say to the Professor in futuro, in language he sucked in with his mother's milk, "There's nane sae blind as they that winna see."

The Quinary System may or may not be founded in truth—it is possibly only an ingenious and artificial method of arranging the animal kingdom ; but it is no more Atheistical than the LinnEean a stem, or than the alphabetical order of Mr. RENNIE'S own • .I)rmthological Dictionary. Ornithology is one of the most in- teresting branches of natural science ; and the Quinary System is the most ingenious and the most philosophical mode of viewing it that has hitherto been invented. At the same time, it is very possible that in twenty or thirty years it may be held only as an ingenious error, which has led to brighter truth : nevertheless, unless. Mr. RENNIE and King's College get the upper hand very dreadfully, we are sure its inventors and au- thors will neither be called by the horrid name of "Atheist," nor yet, profounder horror still, "French prilosopher."