74 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



BUFFON MEMO IK. 



BUFFON, says M. Flourens, was born at Montbar, on 

 the 7th of September, 1707 ; he died in Paris, at the 

 Jardin du Eoi, on the 16th of April, 1788, age 1 81 years. 

 More than fifty of these years, as he used himself to 

 say, he had passed at his writing-desk. His father was 

 a councillor of the parliament of Burgundy. His mother 

 was celebrated for her wit, and Buffon cherished her 

 memory. 



He studied at Dijon with much eclat, and shortly 

 after leaving became accidentally acquainted with the 

 Duke of Kingston, a young Englishman of his own age, 

 who was travelling abroad with a tutor. The three 

 travelled together in France and Italy, and Buffon 

 then passed some months in England. 



Eeturning to France, he translated Hales' s * Vegetable 

 Statics ' and Newton's ' Treatise on Fluxions.' He refers 

 to several English writers on natural history in the 

 course of his work, but I see he repeatedly spells the 

 English name Willoughby, " Willulghby." He was 

 appointed superintendent of the Jardin du Roi in 1739, 

 and from thenceforth devoted himself to science. 



In 1752 Buffon married Mdlle. de Saint Belin, whose 

 beauty and charm of manner were extolled by all her 



