Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 683 / January 27, 1877

Our old friend, Samuel Smiles, now a veteran in literature, who has been indefatigable in writing of the power of Self-help, has, as one of his late exploits, narrated in a most amusing and instructive manner the Life of a Scotch Naturalist , Thomas Edward, who at an advanced age modestly occupies the position of a working shoemaker in Banff. This is a curious and interesting book. Few persons would have taken the trouble that Mr Smiles has done to narrate the efforts in pursuit of a knowledge of Nature of so very obscure and poor a man as is the hero of his remarkable biography. The thing is altogether unique. Nothing but vast kindliness of heart, along with the pleasure of shewing what can be done by constant self-denial and industry, could have influenced the benevolent writer. As probably not many of our readers have yet had an opportunity of seeing the work—a beautifully embellished duodecimo of four hundred pages, published by John Murray, London—we shall try to give a sort of abridged history of the now famed Scotch naturalist, with such observations as occur to us.
Thomas Edward, born in 1814, is the son of a private in the Fifeshire militia, who on the breaking up of his regiment, resided for a short time at Kettle, his native place in Fife, and then, for the sake of work as a handloom weaver, settled with his wife and child at Aberdeen. Here the boy was brought up in the usual rough way experienced by the humbler class of Scotch children. He ran about barefooted, was poorly fed, and required pretty much to find his own amusement. His parents, while willing to do their best for him, soon found that he was far from being easily managed. He was intractable, and in a very strange way. While still a child, he demonstrated an extraordinary love of animals of all kinds. He took delight in dogs, cats, pigs, hens, birds of every kind, and every description of small creatures, down to bees, beetles, flies, spiders, and so on—in fact, any living thing he could lay hold of; even rats and mice did not come amiss. This idiosyncrasy considerably puzzled and vexed the father and mother. Not understanding him, he was scolded and cuffed, but all to no use. The boy was moved by a predominant passion, amounting to a species of mania. When asked what he meant by his eccentricities, he said he could not tell. His love of Nature was an unconquerable instinct.