MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 69 



foctly into his solitude : his calmed mind now re 

 vived prodigiously under all these gratifications and 

 delights. 



The young Naturalists who had been created hy 

 his works, impressed with the admiration of his 

 genius, though he had been to them an invisible 

 oracle, listened to him as a superior being who was 

 come to make his estimate of their acquirements ; 

 for his long absence had multiplied time, and inter- 

 posed many generations between them and him. In 

 the frank and ready approbation he bestowed on all 

 new discoveries, they recognised, in this excellent 

 old man, a mind above the common prepossessions 

 of his years ; and he always treated his new scho- 

 lars, not as a churl, but as a father. It is true that he 

 had never been disposed severely to criticise, and that 

 in all his works he freely gave to his contemporaries 

 their due praise ; a practice which was not less me- 

 ritorious as bestowed upon his pupils. It is likewise 

 true, that he is, perhaps, of all naturalists of the 

 eighteenth century, the one w^ho has least been 

 criticised by others. He has sometimes, indeed, 

 been accused of a certain ardour in amassing from 

 all quarters, and almost of monopolizing the observa- 

 tions and subjects of study selected by others; a 

 conduct which is calculated to displease those whose 

 limited labours may readily be lost in the blaze of 

 glory which legitimately belongs to the man who 

 has conceived a vast plan, and without which an 

 immensity of facts, which become useful chiefly 

 from their approximation, would have been loist t© 



