40 MEMOIR OP 



the perspicacity of his judgment, 'and who has so 

 strongly illuminated the hidden causes of many 

 things, should spend the last portion of his life in 

 darkness."* If from these sources of information 

 we turn to the works of Aldrovandi himself, we 

 think there is unquestionable evidence that the re- 

 presentation must be fallacious. Having said this 

 much, we shall postpone any further remarks on 

 the subject till we have put the reader in a position 

 to judge for himself, which will be effected by 

 supplying that short account and history of his 

 works which our limits will permit. Nothing, cer- 

 tainly, at-, all like a miserable end could have been 

 anticipated from any thing we have hitherto met 

 with in his history, and what still remains is not less 

 incompatible with so melancholy an issue. 



Though Aldrovandi's taste for Natural History 

 was early developed, as already stated upon his own 

 authority, yet a variety of circumstances concurred 

 in, for a time, preventing its regular cultivation. 

 His early years were, of course, devoted to those 

 branches of general education which befitted his 

 honourable birth ; and thereafter a considerable time 

 was devoted, as we have seen, to the study of Philo- 

 sophy, Logic, and Law. These pursuits, however, 

 being at length terminated, we find that he de- 

 voted himself to his favourite study with an energy 

 which never perhaps has been exceeded. This suf- 

 ficiently appears from the extracts already adduced 



* Bayle's Dictionary, English Translation. 



