44 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



1734. There can be no doubt that it was this valuable 

 and beautifully written work, full of interesting 

 facts, detailed in popular and elegant language, 

 that first induced Buffon to adopt a similar style, 

 and to clothe natural history in such a dress 

 that it should interest the world. That he 

 completely succeeded in so doing, by those graces 

 of composition and those charms of eloquence 

 which he possessed, is notorious to all. These 

 qualifications were his own, but they would have 

 been altogether useless, at least in this undertaking, 

 but for the sound information, the knowledge, and 

 the experience of his friend and fellow labourer. 

 Daubenton, who supplied the eloquent biographer 

 of the animal kingdom with that solid information 

 he did not possess, and without which compara- 

 tively he could have done nothing. It is unreason- 

 able to expect that a man like Buffon should excel 

 in such opposite qualities as rigid and laborious 

 research, cautious deduction, and flowery eloquence. 

 Upon the two first is built every thing valuable in 

 pure science; while the latter, however desirable, 

 is merely ornamental ; — it may captivate the world, 

 but it is rather detrimental than otherwise to the 

 advancement of sound knowledge, and the calm 

 investigation of truth. Hence it led the vivid and 

 excursive fancy of Buffon into wild and fanciful 

 theories, positive assertions, and palpable blunders. 

 And these errors, although clothed with all the 

 charms of eloquence, faded away — like the mists 

 of a summer morn— before the rays of truth. That 

 the writings of this celebrated man promoted, 

 indirectly, the extension and the advancement of na* 



