ON BTJFFON. 53 



his pen would preserve from oblivion ; for it was never 

 doubted that every thing he wrote would be immortal ! 

 And is it to be wondered at, that when such finished 

 pictures were seen growing under his hand, it should 

 have been conceived, that they were destined to endure 

 and be admired, as long as men were alive to the 

 charms of eloquence and the beauties of nature ? The 

 most valuable productions of another kind have their 

 course and allotted destiny. Whatever may be the 

 degree of perfection which poetry can attain, its pro- 

 ductions require to be renewed ; that which, in one age, 

 moved rocks, in another is scarcely listened to by men. 

 History becomes old still more rapidly ; every day new 

 facts efface those of the preceding day. In a word, we 

 may expect to see every composition, whose merit or 

 conception belongs to the things which time alters or 

 destroys, become gradually more obscure, and at last 

 fall into oblivion. But, before the writings of Buffon 

 can undergo such a fate, or the value of his pictures be 

 misunderstood, it is necessary that Nature herself should 

 change ; that the lion should lose his fierceness of cha- 

 racter, the dog his intelligence and fidelity, the eagle 

 the empire of the air, the Arab his independence, or 

 that Man should forget Nature ; for, so long as his 

 eyes are directed to it, the grandeur and variety of the 

 spectacle it presents, will never fail to recall the only 

 genius whose view could take in the whole extent of it, 

 and who had the art to describe the details of it.' ' 

 I am not unaware, at the same time, of what has 



