74 HISTORICAL EULOGIUM 



simplest manner; M, de Jussieu afterwards remodelled these 

 new opinions in Latin of peculiar elegarrce, and, preparing 

 a second edition of the Introduction to his great work, 

 gave himself no rest till he could introduce them into it. 

 This last performance of M. de Jussieu's, the work of an 

 aged man, almost ninety years old, has just been published 

 in the Annales: and wonderful is it to see to what an advanced 

 period of life the author has preserved all the clearness of his 

 intellects ; and still more, how powerfully those ideas which 

 had possessed themselves of his mind first in 1773, and had 

 been brought forward again in IT 74, and 1789, remained 

 unchanged throughout his protracted existence, and held 

 their undisputed sway to the very last. 



He was heard one day, explaining to his secretary widi 

 the utmost frankness, why he wrote in Latin preferably to 

 French. In the first place, he said, it fills up my time, and 

 that is always an advantage, now; and then, common ideas, 

 clad in a foreign garb, assume a less homely aspect: if 1 were 

 to express them in my own tongue, I should fear they were 

 not worth the trouble of saying at all, and should make no 

 more account of them. 



M. de Jussieu certainly felt pleasure in his own celebrity, 

 but never did he fail to attribute the greater part of this 

 celebrity to his uncle, and this conviction was expressed by 

 him only a few years ago, in a very pleasing manner. Some 

 person complimenting his son in his presence, on the advan- 

 tage of bearing so illustrious a name, " yes, indeed," answered 

 M. de Jussieu, " the name has been of very great use to me." 

 To the very last years of his life, he never failed, when »» 

 Paris, to attend at the Academy, and he continued to do so 

 when he could hardly either hear or see, feeling happy i" 

 the knowledge that he was among his brethren. For sixty- 

 three years he was a member of the Academy, and for sixty- 

 six the Professor at the Jardin des Plantes, either as substi- 

 tute, or lully invested with the office. 



in tlie country, where, towards the close of his existence, 

 he passed a part of each year, walking was his only amuse- 



