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178 CHAPTER IX.

Goldsmith began to write his 'History of Animated Nature,' Johnson foretold of the work that it would prove "as interesting as a Persian tale," but the same great authority has also said, in the epitaph written for his tomb, that Goldsmith had the magic art of "adorning every subject that he touched." In the absence of such gifted hands wherewith to array natural history, there are many persons to whom its study offers small attraction,