378 MEMOIR OF EAUY. 



any rate, by fostering his original taste, it enabled him to become a 

 respectable performer on the violin and harpsichord, two instruments 

 with which he solaced himself during life. Finally, the interest of 

 his patrons of Saint-Just obtained for him a scholarship in the college 

 of Navarre, where it first became possible for him to enter regu- 

 larly on a course of classic instruction. 



Here his conduct and application gained him favor, as they had 

 done at Saint-Just. The heads of the college engaged his services as 

 teacher as soon as he had ceased to be a pupil, and even advanced him 

 to the mastership of the fourth class before he had quite reached the 

 age of twenty- one years. Transferred some years later to the College 

 of the Cardinal Lemoine, in a similar but higher capacity, he might 

 seem to have limited his ambition to such modest, however useful, 

 functions. It is true that, at Navarre, he had imbibed from M. Brisson, 

 of that Academy, some taste for experimental physics, and at mo- 

 ments of leisure had even experimented with electricity ; but this was 

 rather by way of recreation than study; while natural history, prop- 

 erly so called, does not appear to have, in the least, occupied his 

 attention. 



If, at last, he found the path which was to conduct him in the end 

 to so high a renown, it was still owing to the gentler dispositions of 

 his nature; so that the fame and fortune of Haiiy may be said, with 

 literal exactness, to have been, at every step, the recompense of his 

 virtues. 



Among the regents of the College Lemoine there was at this tjme a 

 learned individual who had devoted himself to the instruction of youth 

 from a principle of piety. Capable of enlightening persons of the 

 maturest age, Lhomond had chosen to restrict himself to compositions 

 for the use of the young; but had contrived to impart to them so ad- 

 mirable a tone of simplicity and clearness that their success has been 

 seldom equaled by works of greater pretension. Between him and 

 Haiiy there existed so striking a conformity of character and sentiments 

 that the latter had chosen him for his friend and confessor; interested 

 himself, with the devotion of a son, in his affairs ; tended him in sick- 

 ness, and was the companion of his walks. Lhomond cultivated botany, 

 and Haiiy, who had scarcely heard of it, felt a chagrin at not being able 

 to add the common study of this as a new charm to their intercourse. 

 In one of his vacations he discovered that a monk of Saint-Just amused 

 himself with the study of plants. The idea at once struck him that 

 he might give an agreeable surprise to his friend, and, with this sole 

 view, he requested the monk to convey to him some notions of the 

 science and some acquaintance with different species. His heart came 

 to the aid of his memory ; he comprehended and retained all that was 

 .shown hiim, and the surprise of Lhomond was unbounded, when, at 

 their next herborization, Haiiy named to him, in the language of 

 Linnams, most of the plants they met with, and showed that he had 

 studied and analyzed their structure. 



From that time everything was common between them, even their 

 amusements; but from that time, also, Haiiy became thoroughly a 

 naturalist, and an indefatigable one. It might be said that his mind 

 had been wakened of a sudden to this new kind of enjoyment. He 



