Martins ) on the Life and Labors of De Candolle. 219 



his well-organized head, fitted for the most difficult processes of 

 thought, experienced no further ill effects from this distressing 

 malady. 



In the gymnasium, {college^) he was not distinguished, except 

 for his proficiency in Latin and French versification. By the 

 time he reached the first class, in the year 1791, he had gained 

 many prizes by his great facility in versification, and his uncom- 

 monly retentive memory. At this period, when his body and 

 mind were proportionally and very rapidly developed, he entered 

 into the " belles-lettres class," a division which answers to the 

 German lycealcursus, or highest department of the gymnasium. 

 The revolution about this time (1792) overflowing the limits of 

 France, extended itself into Switzerland ; the government of the 

 canton of Geneva was overthrown ; and the father of our De Can- 

 dolle retired to an estate which he possessed in Champagne, a 

 village near Grandson, between Yverdun and Neuchatel. The 

 young man had until now devoted himself almost exclusively to 

 classical studies. He had read the great Latin and Greek authors 

 diligently, and with good effect on the development of , his judg- 

 ment ; he had written many essays in French and Latin verse, 

 and knew by heart a great number of classical passages from the 

 literature of these languages. Even at the time of his leaving 



college, his memory retained so perfectly the first six books of the 

 iEneid, that he could go on with the recitation of any portion of 

 them taken at random, without hesitation. The study of history 

 was peculiarly attractive to him, and for a long time he regarded 

 himself as destined to the profession of an historian. 



Somewhat later he attended to the lectures of Pierre Prevost 

 on philosophy. Logic from the lips of this celebrated natural 

 philosopher, the author of the valuable treatise on the equilibrium 

 of caloric, had a powerful influence on his excitable mind. It 

 gave him the habit of sharp and clear thinking, and was an ex- 

 cellent introduction to the different exact sciences, with the study 

 of which he was employed in the years 1794 and 1795. Phys- 

 ics, the department of Marc. Aug. Pictet, had more attraction for 

 him than mathematics. 



Meanwhile his residence in the country, where he was accus- 

 tomed to pass his vacations, had brought him nearer to nature. 

 Without any book on botany, following the guidance simply of 

 the objects themselves, he accustomed himself to the art of ob- 



