28 MEMOIR OF RONDELET. 



slept ill, and both for the purpose of avoiding the 

 weariness of lying long awake, as well as satisfying 

 his thirst for knowledge, he was in the frequent 

 practice of spending a great part of the night in 

 study. The leading qualities of his mind were 

 energy, acuteness, and penetration ; but he was often 

 too precipitate in his judgments, and had frequent 

 occasion to regret for having acted on the resolutions 

 he had formed. He was liberal to excess, distri- 

 buting his money with such profusion, that although 

 his emoluments from the university and his practice 

 were very considerable, independently of his annual 

 pension and the property he inherited from his 

 sister-in-law, he left scarcely any thing to his heirs. 

 One of his most expensive propensities was a pas- 

 sion for building, which he indulged to an extra- 

 vagant extent, frequently causing an edifice, when 

 completed according to his first plan, to be taken 

 down, and reconstructed again and again till it 

 suited all the caprices of his fancy. 



He was fond of giving instructions to others, and 

 took great pleasure in his public prelections in the 

 university, which he rendered highly popular, by 

 interspersing with illustrative anecdotes and hu- 

 morous sallies. He took great delight in the study 

 of anatomy ; and was thought on one occasion to 

 indulge his zeal to the extent of committing an 

 outrage on decency and good feeling, by dissecting 

 the body of one of his own children who died shortly 

 after its birth. 



Although Ichthyology is the only department of 



