Baron Cuvier'^s Historical Eloge of Baron Ramond. 3 



Philosophy, and all the branches of Natural History. It 

 would have been almost as easy for him to have been a pliy- 

 sician as a lawyer ; and if he gave the preference to the last 

 of these titles, it was solely from the idea that it would leave 

 him more at liberty to cultivate his talents. 



From this time indeed he felt no more inclination, either to 

 shut himself up in a study or an hospital. His body required 

 space and motion as well as his mind. He had hardly left the 

 university when he climbed on foot the summits of the Vosges, 

 visited their ruins and their ancient chateaus, and composed 

 elegies and even dramas. These imposing remains of the mid- 

 dle ages inspired him with the idea of painting the manners of 

 those times in a series of dialogues like the historical tragedies 

 of Shakespeare. This work was printed at Bale, without the 

 author's name, in 1780, under the title of the War of Alsace 

 during the great schisyn of the West. But at a time when clas- 

 sical regulations ruled our literature so absolutely that they 

 have not even invented a name for writings which were not 

 submitted to them, this work has not crossed the chain of 

 tlie Vosges. More fortunate on the other side of the Rhine, 

 it has been translated into German, and represented at dif- 

 ferent theatres. The introduction, however, entitled avanf 

 scene, would have been well received everywhere. It is a 

 piece of history written with warmth, and which gives, in a 

 few pages, a sufficiently exact idea of an important epoch. 



Traveller, naturalist, poet, historian, and all this with the 

 ardour of early youth, M. Ilamond now found that he had 

 exhausted Alsace ; but a neighbouring theatre invited him. 

 Switzerland offered him plants, mountains, ancient manners, 

 government of all sorts ; these were so many fields for his ex- 

 traordinary activity. He travelled through it in 1777. Quite 

 young, and altogether unknown, his polished air, and the wit 

 of his conversation, caused him to be received as if he had 

 been already celebrated. The aged Voltaire, loaded as he told 

 him he was with 83 years and 85 diseases, found pleasure in 

 showing him all he had done for his little colony. Lavater at 

 Zurich endeavoured to seize hold of an imagination that ap- 

 peared to him disposed towards mysticism ; and at Berne, 

 Haller, almost dying, still found strength enough to show him 

 some Alpine plants. 



