A Delightfully Aesthetic Science

Titled in reference to, and honor of, Phillip Henry Gosse’s classic 1861 book The Romance of Natural History , Dr. Lynn Merrill’s The Romance of Victorian Natural History presents an examination of not only Mr. Gosse’s own writings but those of his Nineteenth Century fellow amateur natural history practitioners as well. Yet even if this was the extent of Dr. Merrill’s work, her book would still be a significant presentation of some of the period’s most important works of natural history, but what raises it to the level of a particularly important, indeed, one might justly even state essential, work in the study of not only the natural but also the social-cultural, literary, and artistic history of the Victorian age is the author’s research into how the study of natural history in the period was both influenced by as well as reciprocally influenced the development of the literature of the time – and subsequent years – and was both an influence upon and contributed to the remarkable socio-cultural period that we now call the Victorian.

What is known about Dr. Merrill is, unfortunately, less than is desired. Having earned a doctorate in English literature from the University of Colorado (Boulder), she is known to have published a single book – The Romance of Victorian Natural History – and then appears to have left academia to spend the remainder of her career in industry as a technical writer and data manger. Yet in this single book she has presented to the world a gift of great value, and to those interested in the history of natural history as well as the history of Victorian literature, one that may even be declared to be inestimable in its worth.

Not previously aware of either Dr. Merrill or her book, I happened upon a copy on the shelves of Labyrinth Books in Princeton, New Jersey whilst traveling through the area on a business trip. Tucked away in their history of science section, it is pure luck that its rather unassuming light grey cover and white-printed title down its spine even caught my eye (perhaps the beneficent fairies that inhabit the aisles of worthy bookshops led me to it, as they are wont to do to all genuine seekers after knowledge). Adding it to the half-dozen other volumes that accompanied me out of the shop that morning, I packed it in my case and didn’t have another look at it until preparing for my return flight, when I selected it for my in-flight reading during the long journey back across North America to the west coast.

My fellow travelers must have thought the grey-haired, tweedy old gent sitting near them with his nose pointed toward an open book, frequently muttering exclamations of agreement and approbation whilst enthusiastically jotting notes with a pencil onto the pages of a blue pocket notebook, was either half or wholly mad, so engrossed was I in what I found in Dr. Merrill’s book throughout the entirety of that five-hour long flight. For indeed, what I was discovering were not only authors, books, and ideas wholly new to me, but remarkable connections between such things which I had not previously myself drawn. It was as if I had not only discovered a treasure chest but discovered it with the key already in its lock just waiting to be turned for it to open and disclose the unimagined wealth it contained.

Beginning with the work and writing of the aforementioned Mr. Gosse, including his inspiration of the then novel practice of beach-combing, and its subsequent popularization of the building and maintenance of home aquaria, a hobby that continues to this day, and the related personal ownership and use of microscopes, a hobby that unfortunately does not, Dr. Merrill soon expands her narrative to include the natural history interests of such Victorian giants as Alfred Tennyson, as well the also then well-known but now, regrettably, somewhat less so George Henry Lewes and Charles Kingsley. And it is with the addition of these, as well as others who will later be added, such as John Ruskin, Arabella Buckley, a number of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and the American John Burroughs that the stage is set for one of the main explorations of the book to begin.

Unlike the natural philosophers who were laying the foundations for and in some latter instances actively becoming what to us today are the more readily understood categories of biologists, geologists, botanists, entomologists, etc., – men such as Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, John Tyndall, and Richard Owen – those such as Mr. Gosse and his fellow enthusiasts of natural history were pursuing what Dr. Merrill so well describes as an “aesthetic science, nature closely examined to enhance the pleasure that an ordinary person takes in it.” She continues, “It offers pleasures of detail, form, and complexity, as well as evocative connotation and human associations.” It was “not a subject that, like science, could alter the course of history and change the world, but it was a subject that could deeply affect the individual, both mind and spirit.”

As Dr. Merrill goes on to explain in subsequent chapters, the pursuit of natural history is one of particularity. Scientific examination seeks to uncover information that will lead to systematic explanations; natural history examines each bird, each rock, each plant in and of itself, unapologetically marveling at its own unique form, colour, location, and even – dare it be said? – beauty, association, assumed purpose, and even existential meaning. It is little wonder that it drew to it such a number of those also interested in literature and the visual arts, nor is it to be wondered that is was so popular at a time when Victorian society itself was motivated by a desire to learn, and thereby improve both oneself and the society as a result.

Unlike centuries past, England in the Victorian period offered something little expected from life during previous ones: the possibility to become more highly placed in society than the station in which one was born. The Victorians believed in the possibility of improvement through diligent work and study. To learn more about the world was not a matter of idle curiosity, it was a moral duty, for in such activities not only was one improving one’s own knowledge, one was potentially discovering the marvels of Creation and its Creator. To the Victorians, the Zeitgeist of teleological arguments, such as those presented in the not so very much earlier published Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity by the Rev. William Paley, were very much at the forefront of the minds of many Victorians, therefore the pursuit of amateur natural history was far from undermining the authority of religion; it was, in fact, strengthening it.

As there are those who may, upon seeing the work and writings of Mr. Gosse figuring so prominently in this book, it should be noted that far from minimizing some of his ideas that have so plagued his legacy, particularly his publication of Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot, published two years prior to Mr. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, in which Mr. Gosse asserted that the world was not as old as the then recent geological estimations calculated it to be and that fossils were placed in it by its Creator in order to make it appear older than it actually was, and the publication by his son, Sir Edmond Gosse, of Father and Son, which paints the elder Gosse in a much less than flattering light, it should be noted that Dr. Merrill addresses these and other matters pertaining not only to Mr. Gosse but others profiled as well with the forthright honesty to be expected of a respectable scholar. She paints them in the truth of every detail in a manner worthy of the Pre-Raphaelite painters whose motivating philosophy she so well explains in the book, depicting each blossom in and of itself that when joined together with all the other elements of the painting presents to the viewer a complex and beautifully wrought creation that does credit both to its artist as well as its subject.

For all who are interested in the remarkable period of time that was Victorian England, it the study of the history of natural history, of English literature, of Pre-Raphaelite painting, of the idea of self-improvement as both a recreation and a moral duty, and indeed, of the origins of such popular hobbies as the keeping of aquaria, the popularity of ferns in household décor, and even the devoutly to be wished that it persisted wide-spread popularity of amateur microscopy, Dr. Lynn L. Merrill’s The Romance of Victorian Natural History is most highly recommended. It is further recommended that a fresh notebook and a sharp pencil be kept ready to hand when reading it, as the notes that span pages following each chapter will most certainly inspire copious note-taking, and indeed, could readily serve as a superb “shopping list” when visiting a very well-curated library.

Title: The Romance of Victorian Natural History

Author: Lynn L. Merrill, PhD

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Format: Jacketed Hardcover

ISBN-10: ‎ 019505203X

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0195052039

Pages: 288 pages with 16 black and white illus.

Publication Date: 30 March 1989