AUGUSTIN-PYRAMUS DE CANDOLLE. 113 
member of this réunion. Yet he has the names of Biot and Duméril 
on his list, both of whom survived him for twenty years; and Biot was 
really not quite four years his senior, and Duméril only five. As a 
member of this select circle of intimate friends and zealous savante, all 
then pressing on to the very highest distinction, we may well believe 
that the ambitious young botanist enjoyed and improved to the full 
such golden opportunities, that he learnt something of every branch of 
natural history, and also, what was no less useful in Paris, “ à connaitre 
les hommes et les mobiles cachés de bien des choses," 
Àn episode of fifteen days, during whieh De Candolle, to his great 
surprise, had political functions to perform,— being appointed one of 
the three notables of the department of the Lénian, in a representation 
of all the departments of the French Republic, which the First Consul 
called together, —gives us the first glimpse of Bonaparte in this narra- 
tive; and De Candolle's account of the interviews with him and with 
his minister of police, Fouché, is well worth preserving. With this 
transient exception, we have only the most incidental allusions to publie 
affairs during the eventful years of the Consulate, the Empire, and the 
Restoration. 
We pass by, also, the interesting account which De Candolle gives 
of the doings of Delessert and himself in the establishment and ad- 
ministration of the Philanthropic Society, which grew out of the intro- 
duction by them of Count Rumford’s economical soups, distributed to 
the poor. These honourable undertakings brought the two friends into 
relations with Rumford himself when he came to reside at Paris. In- 
deed Delessert, as we have had occasion to learn, became one of Count 
Rumford’s executors. The admiration with which Rumford’s writings 
and economical inventions had inspired the two young philanthropists 
Was much diminished upon personal acquaintance. 
Apropos to reminiscences of distinguished savants, we look forward 
a year or two in the narrative, and select the following :— 
“Joseph Correa de Serra was then about fifty-five or sixty years old. He 
Was of an ancient family in Portugal, which had produced several literary 
men. After studying at the University of Coimbra he was transferred to Rome, 
where he pursued theological studies for a dozen years at the College of the 
Sapienza, but which he left with a knowledge of many things besides theology. 
Returning to Portugal he was made Governor to the hereditary Prince, Secre- 
tary to the Academy of Sciences, etc., and became a very. influential person, beth 
9n account of his talents and on account of the position of his pupil, who it 
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