ULYSSES ALDKOVANDI. 41 



But let us proceed briefly to exhibit the plan which 

 he early sketched, as the labour and pleasure of his 

 life ; and to which he seems to have stedfastly ad- 

 hered. As already mentioned, his plan of study 

 had relation to. a grand and comprehensive publica- 

 tion, with which he was engaged for probably not 

 less than fifty years, and which, though to a con- 

 siderable extent accomplished by himself, was not 

 finally completed until years after his decease. 



In regard to some of these particulars let the 

 author speak for himself. "Feeling that I have 

 been endowed with the talent of investigating the 

 deep secrets of Nature, and that a span of life had 

 been given me sufficiently long for their successful 

 examination, I could not, on reflecting on these 

 blessings received from the Divine Majesty, but 

 endeavour to rear some memorial, however insigni- 

 ficant, of a grateful heart. This I thought I could 

 in part accomplish, if I should leave to posterity 

 the result of what had cost me much labour and 

 expense during my whole life. As I have ever been 

 a determined enemy to idleness, and as I have ap- 

 plied myself to these hidden subjects by day and by 

 night, without much regard to health, and without 

 caring for the colds of dreary winter, or the heats 

 of burning summer, grudging not the most painful 

 labour, as well as my whole and almost undivided 

 time, I have committed my observations to writing, 

 not only on the subject of Natural History, but also 

 on Philosophy and Medicine, and in, a way that can 

 scarcely fail to be useful to Philosophers and Phy- 



