Biographical Memoir of M. Daubenton. 9 



who wished to extend his plan, did nothing but fill it up with 

 compilations that were too often insignificant. 



As soon as his work made its appearance, Daubenton did not 

 fail to obtain the usual recompence of all great undertakings, 

 glory and honours, criticisms and virulence ; for, in the career 

 of science, as in all others, it is less difficult to attain glory, and 

 even fortune, than to preserve tranquillity when one has reached 

 them 



Reaumur at that time swayed the sceptre of natural history. 

 No one had employed sagacity in observation with more effect, 

 none had rendered nature more interesting, by the wisdom and 

 the sort of detailed foresight, of which he found proofs in the 

 history of the minutest animals. His memoirs on insects, al- 

 though diffuse, were clear, elegant, and full of that interest 

 which arises from curiosity incessantly excited by new and sin- 

 gular details ; they had begun to diffuse a taste for the study of 

 nature among the public at large. 



It was not without some degree of chagrin, that Reaumur saw 

 himself eclipsed by a rival, whose bold views and magnificent 

 style excited the enthusiasm of the public, and inspired them 

 with a sort of contempt for researches so trifling in appearance 

 as those of which insects were the object. He evinced his bad 

 humour in rather a sharp manner *; he was even supposed to 

 have contributed to the publication of some critical letters f, in 



• See in the volume of Memoires de PAcademie for 1746, p. 483. which appear- 

 ed only in 1751, a Memoir by Reaumur, on the Means of preventing the 

 Evaporation of Spirituous Fluids, in which Objects of Natural History are 

 preserved. He there complains violently of Daubenton's having published 

 an extract of this memoir in the third volume of the Histoire Naturelle, before 

 the memoir itself was printed. 



+ Lettres a un Americain, sur V Histoire Naturelle Generate et Particuiiere de 

 M. de Buffon, part first, Hamburg (Paris) 1751 ; parts second and third, ibid, 

 same year. It is in the ninth letter of the third part that the intention is 

 most evinced, of defending Reaumur against BufFon. Lettres^ ^c. sur PHis. 

 toire Naturelle deM.de Bufforu, et sur les Observations Microscopiques de M. Need. 

 ?iam, fourth part, ibid, same year. It is in the tenth letter that Daubenton is 

 criticised with respect to the arrangement of the Royal Cabinet, and M. de 

 Reaumur's opposed to it. Fifth part, same title, and same year. Then, 

 Suite des Lettres, ^c. sur les Quatrieme et Cinquieme vol. de PHist. Nat. de M. 

 Buffon, et sur le Traite des Animau^de M. PAbb^de CondiUac, sixth part, Ham. 

 burgh, 1756. The title and date remain the same for the seventh, eighth, and 

 ninth parts. The author, ex-oratorien, a native of Poitiers, was named the 



