284 The Life and WrHings of Francis Huher, 



which was frequently noticed by Voltaire, who valued him for 

 the originality of his conversation. He was an agreeable musi- 

 cian, and made verses which were boasted of even in the saloon 

 at Ferney. He was distinguished for lively and piquant repar- 

 tee; he painted with much facility and talent; * he excelled so 

 much in the cutting out of landscapes, that he seems to have 

 been a creator of this art. His sculpture was better than that 

 which those who are simply amateurs are able to execute -f-; and 

 to this diversity of talent, he joined the taste and the art of ob- 

 serving the manners of the animal creation. 



His work on the Flight of Birds of Prey is still consulted with 

 interest by naturalists. John Huber transmitted almost all his 

 tastes to his son. The latter attended from his childhood the 

 public lectures at the college, and, under the guidance of good 

 masters, he acquired a predilection for literature, which the con- 

 versation of his father served to develop. He owed to the same 

 paternal inspiration his taste for natural history, and he de- 

 rived his fondness for science from the lessons of De Saussure, 

 and from manipulations in the laboratory of one of his relatives, 

 who ruined himself in searching for the philosopher's stone. His 

 precocity of talent was manifest in his attention to nature, at an 

 age when others are scarcely aware of its existence, and in the 

 evidence of deep feeling, at an age when others hardly betray 

 emotions. It seemed that, destined to a submission to the most 

 cruel of privations, he made, as it were instinctively, a provision 

 of recollections and feelings for the remainder of his days. At 

 the age of fifteen, his general health and his sight began to be 

 impared. The ardour with which he pursued his labours and 

 his pleasures, the earnestness with which he devoted his days to 

 «tudy, and his nights to reading of romances by the feeble light 

 of a lamp, and for which, when deprived of its use, he some- 

 times substituted the light of the moon, were, it is said, the 



• Several pictures of game, a kind in which he excelled, and his own por- 

 trait are deposited in the Museum of the Fine Arts, given by his family. 



t A trait of his talent is preserved which is indicative of his character. 

 He is presenting a piece of bread to his dog in such a way as to make him 

 bite it upon all sides, and there results from it a very striking bust of 

 Voltaire. 



X Observations sur le Vol des oiseaux de prole -, par M. Jean Huber, Ge- 

 neve, in 4to, 1774. 



