

AI.F.MDERT, JEAN-LE-UOND D'. 



lot 



Thb wa* the hut work that wa* pnblUhed 

 <tar**C Mi lUMsm*. He, however, left abundance of materlilt for 

 further work*, and th* Mate of Bologna, who had liberally milts il 

 AWlrovatdu. whoa alive, appointed panon* to edit hit work*. Tb* 

 rabwqu.nl vuluroe* all appear in hi* name, with the addition of that 

 of UM editor : the only difteraw* (lOfritti in ityling Aldrovandu. 

 patrician in UM porthumou* volume*, where** be it called profeMor 

 in that* published in hi* lifetime. 



Th* gnat meril of th* writing* of Aldrovandu* it their complete 

 a* ; their great fault i* UM credulity of the author. Cuvier any* 

 th* work* of Aldrovandu* might ho reduced to one tenth without 

 injury, and Buflbn ridicule* hi* eompnbeosiv* mod* of treating hit 

 Mbiecte in the following language: " In writing the hiitory of the 

 cook and th* ball," *y Buflon. - Aldrorand tell, you all that bat 

 >er been said of cock* and built ; all that the ancient* have thought 

 or imagined with regard to their virtue*, character, and courage ; all 

 UM thine* for which they bare been employed ; all the tale* that old 

 w oaten tall of then; all the miracle* that have been wrought upon 

 or by them in dim-rent religion* ; all th* superstition* regarding them ; 

 kll the comparison* that poeti have made with them ; all the attri- 

 bute* that certain nation* nave accorded them ; all the representations 

 that bar* been made of them by hieroglyphic* or in heraldry ; in a 

 word, all the historic* and all the fables with which we are acquainted 

 on UM subject of cook* and bulls." Thi* i* hardly an overdrawn 

 picture of th* manner in which Aldrovandu* treats each animal, 

 l-lant, and mineral in bit ponderous volume*. But these works must 

 not be criticised at if they wen something which they are not. They 

 an not manual*, outline*, or introduction* to natural history : they 

 prof*** to b* historic* of the subject* on which they treat, and as such 

 they an the mo*t precious >torehou*e of facts, references, and obser- 

 vation* in natural hiitory extant Nor an these work* mere compila- 

 tion*. They an illustrated with many hundred* of original drawing* ; 

 nftnoce* arc mad* to object* in the museum of Aldrorandu*, and he 

 ha* given the result of numerous dissection* made with his own 



Aldrovandut regarded object* in nature more at individuals thin 

 in their relations to each other, and hence he made no progress in 

 (Titemitic arrangement ; and in thi* respect bit works are not supe- 

 rior to those of Aristotle or Gestner. He hot however supplied fact*, 

 and whatever may be the confusion in which they are arranged, on 

 account of the period at which they are recorded, they (till claim 

 the attention of every naturalist. 



Aldrorandui died on the 10th of November, 1607, in his eighty- 

 fifth year. Nearly all hit biographers sUte that this event occurred 

 in the hospital at Bologna, when he was compelled to spend his last 

 dayi on account of the great expense he had been at in collecting his 

 museum and publishing his work*. The secret archives of the senate 

 of Bologna, a* quoted by Fantuzzi, proved that they assisted Aldro- 

 vandu in the mult liberal manner. They doubled hi* salary toon 

 after hi* appointment to the chair of natural history, and when he 

 wa* no longer able to lecture, they appointed a successor but con- 

 tinued hit (alary. At various times they granted him no lees than 

 40,000 crowns to carry on his researches and publish his works. He 

 wat buried with great pomp, at the public expense, in the church of 

 St. Stephen in Bologna; and all the works that appeared after his 

 death wen published under the direction and at the expense of the 

 teait* From these circumstance* we an inclined to think, that if 

 Aldrovandu* did die in sn hospital, it may have arisen from some- 

 thing peculiar in hi* case, and not from any want of public sympathy 

 or gratitude. 



(FanUuri, ifcmorie delta Vila I'liui Aldrovandi; Jocher, Allgem. 

 GMrtm-Leximt, and Adelung, Supp. ; Carrore, Bibliothlqiie de la 

 MUlcnu; Byl, //utoricoi /He/./ Haller, BiUiolkeea liotanica.) 



(Abridged from the Biographical Dictionary of the Society for Ike 

 Zfc/MK* of CMU A-noir/eV) 



ALDUS. [MAKCTIC*.] 



ALEX AN, MATEO. This celebrated Spanish writer was bom at 

 Neville, about the middle of th* 16lh century. Ho held an important 

 oOc* in tho financial department, under Philip II., which ho filled 

 with honour for a long period. Disgusted at last with tho broils of 

 Ue court, b* requested hi* diimiasal; and having obtained it, ho 

 retired to devote hjm**lf entirely to rtudy. In 1604 he published tho 



I .if* of St. Antonio de Padua/ W* are ignorant of the motive or 

 jHect of hi* voy an to Mexico, and only know, that in 1609 he pub- 

 then an ' Ortognfia CaiUUana. 1 But the work which entitles 

 him to the notice of noeterity it hi* Guzman de Alfarache,' which he 

 publUMd at Madrid in ISM. Thi* amusing snd interesting work U 

 a bitter aaUn on UM com-*' * 

 . 



with 



cultivation of 



. . > w win imuie were luw 



Mb}* of prrrrviog the immrnM Mapin raised by him, and tho huge 

 ediftce began to fall already under bit ton. The nation wa. then 

 warming with a multitude of men, who, thinking it degrading to earn 

 an boo*** livelihood, did not acrupl* to live by cheating and iwindling. 

 TU* * UM origin of the multitude of tho** novel* called ' Picareeca.' 

 which from th. banning of th. 10th to the Utter end of the 17th 

 atari**, trpwrd in Spain, intended to describe the life and man- 



'"ft Bin*, linnniiHtU^ WU(K IB 



corrupted manner* of Spain at that period. 



I aterprUog pate* of Cbarle* V. had inspired the Spanith youth 

 b ao ambition for military glory, and drawn them off from the 

 tivationof the o^ul arU uvf icUoce*. Hit luoeewor* wen inc.- 



nert of rogue*, vagabond*, and boggart, bringing alto the other cluse* 

 of tociety upon the *tage, either a* their victim*, abettor*, or pro- 

 tector*. Aleman teem* in hi* retirement to have recurred to past 

 scene*, and to have aet down the vice*, the follies, and the hypocrisies 

 of th* more elevated chute* which he had witneated, wbUo at tlio 

 ame time be detail* with extraordinary minutoneni the trick* and 

 adventure* of rogue* of inferior degree. Guzman i* a worthy follower 

 of Lawillo de Tonne*, and a precursor of Oil lihu. The hero is of 

 doubtful detceut, with the pramomen of one of the proudest families 

 of Spain ; tenderly reared, be throw* hiintolf, a boy, upon thn v, 

 become* successively stable boy, beggar, porter, thief, man of fashion, 

 soldier iu Italy, valet to a cardinal, and pander to a French ambas- 

 sador; i* subsequently a merchant and becomes bankrupt, t 

 student at the university of Alcalo, marries, it deserted by hit w if.-, 

 commits a robbery, i* tent to the galley*, it liberated, and tli. u writes 

 an account of hi* life. The narrative is interwoven with shrewd 

 maxim* and acute observations. The author is classed by Mayan* 

 among the prose writers beat adapted for the formation of a good 

 Castiliau style, and i* named by him, which i* no small merit, with 

 Fray Luis de Leon, Hurtodo do Mendoza, Cervantes, Mariana, and 

 Herrera, the great master* of thi* rich, harmonious, and noble 

 language. The book was first printed iu 1599, went through five and- 

 twenty editions iu Spain, and wat translated into all the languages of 

 Kurope; it appeared in London, in 1C23, as from an anonymous 

 translator, for the Spanish name affixed, Don Diego Pucde-ser (M.iy- 

 be-so), is evidently assumed ; probably by the indefatigable liowoll, 

 who was at Madrid immediately prior to the date of its publication. 

 (Nieolao Antonio, liMiotheea Jlufana Aero.) 



ALEHBEKT, JEAN-LE-ROND D'. On Nov. the 17th, 1717, a 

 new-born infant wot found exposed in a public market by tho church 

 of St-Jean-le-Rond, near the cathedral of Notre-Dame, at Paris. 

 This infant was the celebrated D'Alembert, and from the place of his 

 exposure he derived his Christian name. How he obtained his sur- 

 name is not mentioned. He was found by a commissary of police, 

 and instead of being conveyed to the hospital of Kufaos-Trouvcs, was 

 intrusted to tho wife of a poor glazier, on account of the care which 

 his apparently dying state required. It has been supposed that tho 

 discovery, as well as the exposure, was arranged beforehand, as iu a 

 few day* the father mode himself known, and settled an allowance of 

 1200 francs a-year for his support. Other accounts state that the 

 abandonment was the act of the mother, and that the father, upon 

 bearing it, came forward for the protection of his eon. This father 

 was M. Destouches, commissary of artillery ; the mother was Madame 

 or more properly Mademoiselle de Tenciu, a lady celebrated for her 

 talents and adventures, and authoress of several works, in one of 

 which, ' Les Malheurs de 1'Auiour,' she is supposed to have giveu a 

 sketch of her own life. She was sister of Peter Guerin de Teuciii, 

 Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, and took the veil in the convent of 

 Montfleuri, near Grenoble, which place she afterwards quittc I, and 

 settled at Paris, where she became more celebrated for wit than 

 virtue. It is said that when D'Alembert began to exhibit proofs of 

 extraordinary talent, she scut for him, and acquainted him with the 

 relationship which existed between them; and that his reply was, 

 " You are only my step-mother ; the glazier's wife is my mother." 



D'Alembert commenced his studies at the College des Quatre 

 Nations, at the age of twelve years. The professors were of the 

 Jansenist party, and were not long in discovering the talents of their 

 pupil. In the first year of his course of philosophy, he wrote a 

 commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, from which, as Condorcet 

 remarks, they imagined they had found a new Pascal ; and to make 

 the resemblance more complete, turned his attention to mathematics. 

 The attempted parallel probably never existed except in the ingenious 

 head of the author of the 'Eloge; ' for D'Alembert himself informs 

 us, that his professor* did their best to dissuade him both from 

 mathematics and poetry, alleging that the former, in particular, drird 

 up the heart, and recommending as to the latter, that he shoul.l 

 confine himself to the poem of St. Prosper upon Grace. They per- 

 mitted him, nevertheless, to study tho rudiments of mathematics, and 

 from that time he persisted in the pursuit. When he left college, he 

 returned to his foster-mother, with whom he lived altogether forty 

 yean, and continued hit studies. Not that she gave him much 

 encouragement, for when he told her of any work he had written, or 

 discovery which he had made, she generally replied, " Voua ne teroz 

 jamaii qu'un philosophe ; et qu'ost ce qu'un philosophe ? c'eat un fou 

 qui se tourmento pendant Ba vie, pour qu'on parle de lui lorsqu'il u'y 

 era plus ; " which we may English thus, " You will never bo anything 

 but a philosopher and what is that but a fool who plague* himself 

 idl his life, that he may be talked about after he it dead !" 



With nothing but his income of 1200 francs, and tho resource of 

 the public libraries for obtaining those books which he could not 

 buy, he gave up all hope* of wealth or civil honours, that he might 

 devote himself entirely to his favourite studies. Hero ho wns 

 .ii-| ii it.'.l by finding that he hid been anticipated in most of what he 

 imagined to have been bis own discoveries. In the meanwhile bin 

 friends urged him to enter a profession, to which he at last agreed, and 

 chose the law. After being admitted an advocate, he abandoned this 

 profession and took to physic, a* more congenial to hit own pursuits. 

 Determined to persevere, ho lent all his mathematical books to a 



