38 MEMOIR OF 



science*. Though it may be impossible now to 

 attain, or recover, much of his personal and private 

 history, yet as his beautiful work remains, and as 

 it is universally allowed to be not more elegant 

 than it has been useful, it is clear that the admirers 

 of Natural History owe him a debt of gratitude 

 which is far from having oeen paid. His chief 

 production is a splendid illustrated work on Ichthy- 

 ology ; and few attempts could be more appropriate, 

 we conceive, than that in that department of the 

 Naturalist's Library which is dedicated to Fishes, 

 and in which their faithfully coloured delineation 

 is second only to their accurate scientific description, 

 an endeavour should be made to do justice to the 

 memory and labours of one of the most distin- 

 guished revivers of the science in modern times. 



The only sketch .of Salviani that we have seen, 

 and it is a very slight one, is from the pen of Baron 

 Cuvier. This illustrious Frenchman, great in every 

 department of Natural History, laboured more as- 

 siduously in none than in the difficult one of Ich- 

 thyology. In his celebrated introductory history of 

 this branch of science, he was naturally led to con- 

 sider the labours of its early cultivators ; and some 

 of his remarks in this admirable summary are so 

 applicable to our present subject, as well as so 

 valuable in themselves, that we shall enrich our 

 pages with a very short epitome of them. 



* No notice of Salviani is to be found in Moreri or Bayle, 

 or in the English Universal Biographies, or in any of the 

 Encyclopaedias, which have become such complete 

 diums of information. 



