28 MEMOIR OF 



The expressions which occur in the above pas- 

 sages accord with the fact that the Science of Na- 

 tural History, though naturally dividing itself into 

 distinct fields of investigation, had not at the time 

 now under review made such advances as to have 

 procured votaries who confined their principal atten- 

 tion to some favourite department. Hence we find 

 that the whole interminable field opened up to oar 

 professor's view, so vast that it would have daunted 

 any other energies save his own. On his mind, 

 however, the extent of the subject only produced 

 the opposite effect ; and he almost -seems to have 

 aimed at the endeavour of investigating and de- 

 scribing the whole range of Nature's works. 



It is only reasonable to suppose that a man who 

 appreciated so highly the favourite object of his 

 studies, who prosecuted it with such unwonted 

 ardour, and wrote with such burning enthusiasm, 

 could not fail to impart something of the same 

 temper to others, and would be especially calculated 

 to become at once a most useful and popular public 

 teacher. This matter, however, is not left to con- 

 'ecture, as we have the direct testimony of Uterverus, 

 the friend and immediate successor of Aldrovandi ; 

 whose words are these: "Every one is aware 

 of the celebrity which Aldrovandi has acquired in 

 his public prelections in illustration of Aristotle, 

 Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Galen, illustrations 

 which have been heard with the highest delight by 

 his auditory. Nor is less praise due on account of 

 the demonstrations which he gives, both in the pub- 



