100 MEMOIRS OF 



vourite opinion, is desirous of pointing out its own powers 

 of discrimination by dwelling on the imperfections of 

 others, and when (fame being then dearest) it is but too 

 much inclined to steal into its compositions somewhat of 

 self, some allusion to its own labours and feelings. None 

 of this is perceptible in the 6loge of Daubenton, any more 

 than in the rest of M. Cuvier's biographical notices : there 

 is the desire to do honour to his predecessors ; there we 

 have laid before us the influence that past labours are likely 

 to shed over the future ; there is the strict love of justice, 

 pointing out errors to serve as beacons for those who follow 

 the same career ; there is the gentle and unwilling exposure 

 of faults, that desire to admit every circumstance which 

 could palliate the defect ; there is the benevolent heart that 

 is so evidently gratified when opportunity is given for com- 

 mendation ; and in each, and in all together, we trace the 

 just celebrity which France has attained from her biogra- 

 phical writers. 



Although a shorter notice will suffice for the other eloges, 

 it will be necessary to mention them all, in order to show 

 the variety of the subject, and occasionally to introduce an 

 original passage, not as a better specimen of style than 

 could be found elsewhere, but as combining beauty with 

 general interest. M. Lemon nier, the subject of the second, 

 was head physician to Louis XVI., and a botanist : he 

 spent the greater part of his life in trying to introduce use- 

 ful plants and trees into France ; he solaced the poor, and 

 received no reward from them ; he courageously visited 

 his unfortunate master when in prison, and, at eighty-two 

 years of age, died at the herb shop which he had established 

 in order to obtain a livelihood, but where he had been 

 watched over by his nieces with the most devoted attach- 

 ment, and visited by his friends, who thought his old age 

 rendered doubly honourable by this independent mode of 

 existence. 



M. 1'Heritier was also a botanist, but of another descrip- 

 tion, being a strict follower of the system and nomencla- 

 ture of Linnaeus. A curious anecdote, related in this loge, 

 forcibly developes the character of the man, and at the 

 same time shows the relation he had with England. Al- 

 ways seeking after fresh acquisitions in his favourite science, 



