18 MEMOIR OP 



whilst it was universally acknowledged that he was 

 as obhgiiig as he was polished, and that he did not 

 more indulge in compliment than in rendering 

 important services, and in bestowing substantial 

 favours. His father superintended his education 

 with gi-eat care, and received valuable assistance 

 from M. de Chabannes, the Bishop of Agen ; and 

 it was remarked that during his younger years the 

 idea oi a bad author or of a mcked man scaicely 

 presented itself to his mind. Wlien twelve years of 

 age, as he himself stated, he imagined that all poets 

 resembled ComeiUe and Raciae, that all historians 

 were hke Bossuet, and all moralists like Fenelon. 

 He had thus from his earliest years a great leaning 

 to optimism, and would scarcely beheve that any one 

 was actuated by bad feeliags or intentions, or that 

 any one wished to deceive ; and this prepossession 

 had great iafluence over his conduct and writings, 

 as well as on his social habits. 



BuiBTon's Natural History/ was one of those books 

 which was early put into his hands, and it instantly 

 became a favourite ; it was the companion of his 

 walks, and that in one of the finest countries of the 

 Avorld. It was on the beautiful banks of the lovely 

 valley of the Garonne, in the neighbourhood of those 

 smiling hills which are so majestically terminated by 

 the peaks of the Pyrenees that he studied the elo- 

 quent pictures of this great writer : his passion for 

 the beauties of Nature thus originated at the same 

 time with his admiration for that gieat painter who 

 pointed them out to his contemplation, and these 



