198 Dr Daubeny on the Writings and 



now entered upon by a sense of the obligations I owe to this 

 great botanist, not only in common with all who have studied 

 his works, but also more particularly for many acts of per- 

 sonal kindness, and much information liberally afforded me 

 diu-ing my former residence at Geneva ; yet I should despair 

 of being able to interest you in my delineation of his scientific 

 character, if accuracy of observation, and a retentive memory, 

 applied to the subject-matter of botany, had constituted the 

 only ti'aits by which he stood remarkable amongst his fellows. 

 But I flatter myself, that a sketch of his several contribu- 

 tions to science, and of the qualities of mind displayed in his 

 mode of handling the subjects they embrace, will possess 

 some interest, not only as it ]may lead to a higher estimate 

 of the branch of natural history to which they relate, but 

 also because it will enable you to trace the steps by which a 

 great mind was enabled to ascend to many important gene- 

 ral principles, not by mere happy guesses at truth, but by a 

 gradual and laborious accumulation of facts — a power of as- 

 similating, as it were, and combining into an harmonious 

 whole, the discoveries of other men, together with a singular 

 sagacity in deducing conclusions from the data he had thus 

 collected. 



Augustin Pyramus DecandoUe was born at Geneva in the 

 year 1778, within a month, it has been remarked, of the death 

 of Linnaeus.* He was distinguished from his infancy by a 

 most retentive memory.t and by a fondness and aptitude for 

 study ; but it is remarkable, that his earliest tastes were ex- 

 clusively literary, and that he had acquired in his boyhood 

 a great facility in composing verses, which, indeed, he re- 

 tained ever afterwards, though I am not aware of any poetry 

 having been published under his name. To these literary oc- 

 cupations of his yoath, antecedent to his devotion to natural 

 history, I should be disposed to attribute, the purity of his 

 language, the remarkable clearness and sustained energy of 



* Also, as Flourens states, two months after the death of Haller, and 

 three months after that of Bernard de Jussieu. 



t He has been known to repeat every word of a copy of verses after heai'- 

 ing them once recited. 



