18 MEMOIB OF BFFFOK. 



Bonjamin le Clerc Buffon, being a counsellor of Parlia- 

 ment in the district, naturally wished that his son 

 should study his own profession, and if possible assist 

 and succeed him in the discharge of its duties. There 

 are few existing records of the early life of Buffon ; 

 and except that he pursued the studies which he 

 undertook with great ardour and perseverance, we 

 know little of his youthful habits and propensities. 



His first public tuition was at the Jesuit's College of 

 Dijon, where he was placed to study the profession of 

 the law ; but his dislike for this employment, and the 

 zeal with which he followed the more abstruse sciences, 

 prevented his father from insisting upon a continua- 

 tion of his legal studies, and gradually permitted him 

 to pursue those of his own selecting. Astronomy and 

 mathematics seem to have been the branches which 

 chiefly interested him ; and he perused, with per- 

 severance, the most esteemed works on these subjects. 

 Euclid was a great favourite ; and he is said to have 

 been so much engrossed with this author, that he 



Street, and the court is behind. You ascend a staircase to go 

 into the garden, \vhich is raised on the ruins of the ancient man- 

 sion, of which the walls make the ten-aces. On the top there still 

 remains an octagon tower, where Buffon made his observations on 

 the reverberations of air. The elevation of this tower is 140 feet 

 above the level of the little river Braine, which crosses the town. 

 This singular and picturesque garden is well worthy the notice of the 

 curious ; and the numerous foreign trees which the illustrious pro- 

 prietor had collected, form agreeable arbours, MILLIN'S Travel** 



