23 MEMOIE OF BUFFON. 



During his whole life he enjoyed a singular portion 

 of good health, notwithstanding the irregularities 

 which all his biographers allow that he frequently 

 indulged in. He was afflicted late in life with the 

 stone, which, about his seventy-second or seventy- 

 third year, became extremely annoying and painful. 

 He would not submit to an operation, and certainly 

 accelerated his death by his obstinacy, as his medical 

 attendants, on an after examination, affirmed, that he 

 would have been safely relieved by an easy operation. 

 Under all the sufferings of this painful disease, he is 

 said to have assiduously continued his studies ; and 

 it may be remarked, as confirming this assertion, that 

 with all men who have studied long and perseve- 

 ringly, the act becomes confirmed to a habit, and 

 instead of being irksome, in their greater pains and 

 imbecilities, becomes an amusement to the mind, and 

 a solace to their bodily frailties. We are accustomed 

 too often to couple study with what is disagreeable. 



Buffon continued for nearly eight years in severe 

 affliction : he retained his reason till within a few 

 hours of his death, but sunk under excruciating tor- 

 ture, on the l6th April 1788, in the eighty-first year 

 of his age. Upon dissection, fifty stones were found 

 in his bladder. His body was embalmed and con- 

 veyed to Montbard, to be placed, according to his direc- 

 tions, in the same vault with that of his wife. Every 

 earthly honour was paid to his memory: a concourse of 

 academicians, and of persons of rank and distinction, at- 



