Biographical Memoir of' M, Hauy. 209 



M. Haiiy to choose this man as the friend of his lieart, and the 

 director of his conscience. Devoted to him as a child, he as- 

 sisted him in his business, tended him in his sickness, and ac- 

 companied him in his walks. Lhofhond was fond of botany, 

 and M. Haiiy, who had scarcely heard it spoken of, experienced 

 daily the chagrin of not being able to give this additional plea- 

 sure to their intercourse. He discovered, in one of his vaca- 

 tions, that a monk of St Just also amused himself with plants. 

 He instantly conceived the idea of agreeably surprising his 

 friend, and, with this view alone, he besought the monk to give 

 him some lessons in the science, and make him acquainted with 

 a certain number of species. His heart assisted his memory. 

 He comprehended and retained all that was shewn him ; and 

 nothing could equal Lhomond's surprise, when, on his first ex- 

 cursion, Haiiy named to him, in the language of Litmaeus, most 

 of the plants which they met with, and shewed him that he had 

 studied their structure in detail. 



Henceforth every thing was common to them, even to their 

 amusements ; but from this period, also, M. Haiiy became com- 

 pletely a naturalist, and an indefatigable one. It might be said 

 that his mind was suddenly awakened to this new kind of enjoy- 

 ment He made a herbarium with extraordinary care and neat- 

 ness*, and thus early accustomed himself to the employment of 

 method. The Royal Garden was near his college, and it was 

 natural that he should often walk in it. The numerous objects 

 which he there saw, extended his ideas, and exercised him more 

 and more in classifying and comparing. Seeing the crowd one 

 day entering to hear M. Daubenton's lecture on mineralogy, he 

 entered along with it, and was delighted to find in that science 

 an object of study still more congenial than plants to his first 

 taste for physics. 



But the Royal Garden had a great number of pupils, and 

 M. Daubenton many hearers, who left l)otany and mineralogy 

 such as they found them. Perhaps they knew the one and the 

 other better than M. Haiiy, because they had studied them ear- 

 lier ; but this longer habit of study was precisely what had fa- 



• He employed a peculiar method, which has preserved the colours of the 

 flowers to the present day. See his observations op the manner of making 

 herbaria, in the volume of tlie Academy for 1785, p. JKIO. 



