THE

LILY AND THE BEE

AN APOLOGUE OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE OF 1851

A NEW EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED, WITH NOTES, AND

ΤΟ

RICHARD OWEN,

D. C. L. F. R.S. ETC.

A MAN OF TRUE PHILOSOPHIC SPIRIT,

WHOSE UNWEARIED AND PROFOUND RESEARCHES REFLECT

LUSTRE ON THE SCIENCE OF HIS COUNTRY,

THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED

BY THE AUTHOR,

AS A MEMORIAL OF CORDIAL FRIENDSHIP.

INNER TEMPLE,

July 1854.

PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

THE Lily and the Bee is an attempt, in a humble and reverent spirit, to interpret that which its Author conceived to be the true spiritual significance, the hidden teaching, of the Temple of Wonder and Worship, of 1851. With the motives and objects by which he was influenced, it is impossible for him to feel anything like resentment, on account of certain fierce criticisms which this little book has been fated to encounter, and may yet encounter. Few works, indeed, of modern days, have occasioned such a contrariety of critical judgment, as The Lily and the Bee: for while it has been characterised, by persons of undoubted competency, as totally unworthy of the occasion, or even the Author, it is certain that a widely different estimate has been formed of it by many, some of whom stand foremost in the ranks of criticism, scholarship, and philosophy; while it has also had a very large sale in this country, been reprinted in America and on the Continent, and translated into German and Italian, if not also other languages. The singular conflict of opinion respecting it, cannot be better illustrated, than by the circumstance, that while one of the Reviews stated that the Author 'had earned a title to be regarded as the Milton of the Exhibition,' another pronounced The Lily and the Bee to be 'the raving of a madman in the Crystal Palace.' This marvellous diversity of opinion in England, is thus noticed by the Italian translator, in his expository Preface. 'The Lily and the Bee is a work which, on account of its originality, has been exposed to the extremes of criticism, by the eminent men of a great nation. By some it has been extolled to the skies, by others utterly condemned. Such a work vindicates its claim to be judged of by nations at large: to whom it belongs to award to it those sublime attributes which triumph over time, or consign it to oblivion, as the extravagant creation of a distempered brain.'1

1 Un' opera infine, che per la sua originalità destò cosi varie e contradittorie opinioni fra i sommi di una nazione, che è grande; da quale esaltata con frenesia di ammirazione ai cieli, da quale sprofondata negli abissi. Un' opera tale deve essere a dritto guidicata dalle nazioni; e che le nazioni le nediano il pregio di sublimità che trionfa dei secoli, e del tempo, o la dannino all' obblio, come una stravaganza e delirio.'-Il Giglio e l'Ape, Prefazione, x.

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