MEMOIR OF CUVIKR. 55 



ahip His first acquaintance was when Cuvier was only six 

 or seven years of age : at this time he was said to ha ye been 

 a boy of more than ordinary endowments, and to have pos- 

 sessed a steadiness and application beyond his years. M. 

 Duvernoy and his friends, whom he often visited, were 

 astonished when he read aloud and recited verses with as 

 much precision as a youth of twenty ; and they were much 

 struck at the clearness and beauty of his writing, his skill 

 as a draftsman, and the facility with which he cut out of 

 paper or card models and representations of any thing which 

 interested him. 



Cuvier received his first instructions in the art of draw- 

 ing from his cousin M. Werner, an architect in the town of 

 Montbeliard, and grandfather to the zoological painter to 

 whom France is indebted for many of the designs for her 

 beautiful works upon natural history, and particularly that 

 of Frederic Cuvier upon the Mammalia. As we have be- 

 fore mentioned, he prosecuted this accomplishment with 

 the greatest success. Some of his earliest attempts were co- 

 pies from the plates of BufFon, which he coloured from the 

 descriptions ; and when that author did not accompany his 

 description with a figure, our young naturalist would make 

 a coloured drawing, according to his interpretation of it, 

 in a manner perfectly unique. 



Many of the plates for his works were engraved from his 

 own drawings ; and for some of the illustrations to his pa- 

 pers in the Annales du Museum upon Fossil Osteology, 

 which became so numerous as to encroach seriously upon 

 his private funds, he not only made the drawings, but also 

 engraved them. These were afterwards published in the 

 last edition of the Ossemens Fossiles, and are chiefly con- 

 tained in the third volume. 



In the Academie Caroline, where we have seen that Cu- 

 vier was placed at an early age, the course of instruction 

 was what was termed " genirale ou speciale." The branch 

 " speciale" contained several divisions, and among them 

 that of Finance, to which he entered. The Science of Fi- 

 nance, according to the arrangements of the Academy, was 

 composed of the following sections, which will give some 

 idea of the variety of subjects which were to be studied 



