148 EMINENT NATURALISTS. 



perpetually recurring, particularly towards the close 

 of his career. He frequently said that he had no 

 fear of death, and that the hope of immortal renown 

 was the most powerful of death-bed consolations. 



Buffon, during the greater part of his life, was 

 highly respected in all Europe, and it is said that 

 during the war, 1755 — 1762, whenever the captains 

 of English privateers found in their prizes any 

 boxes addressed to Comte de Buffon (and many were 

 addressed to him from every part of the world), they 

 immediately forwarded them to Paris unopened — a 

 mark of reverence for genius which ought not to 

 remain unrecorded. 



But I took great pains in forming the style of 

 his writings, and as composition was to him a diffi- 

 cult task he repeatedly revised his works before he 

 published them. Such was his attention to style that 

 he could not bear the least deviation from accuracy 

 and propriety in the use of language. 



" The style," said he, " is the man. Out' poets 

 have no style; they are coerced by the rules of nietiv. 

 which makes slaves of them." 



To this circumstance it was perhaps owing that he 

 abandoned poetry, which he attempted in his youth, 

 and restricted himself to prose. Such was Buffon r s 

 regard to fame, that he destroyed every paper which 

 he thought useless or unfinished, and thus preserved 

 his reputation from being destroyed by posthumous 

 publications. 



Of the free sentiments which Buffon had imbibed 

 with regard to religion his works afford ample evi- 



