AUGUSTIN-PYRAMUS DE CANDOLLE. 301 



Apropos to reminiscences of distinguished savans, we look 

 forward a year or two in the narrative, and select the fol- 

 lowing. And first, of a person who was well known to a past 

 generation, and to some who still survive, at Philadelphia. 



" Joseph Correa de Serra was then about fifty-five or sixty years 

 old. He was of an ancient family in Portugal, which had produced 

 several literary men. After studying at the University of Coimbra 

 he was transferred to Rome, where he pursued theological studies 

 for a dozen years at the College of the Sapienza, but which he left 

 with a knowledge of many things beside theology. Returning to 

 Portugal, he was made governor to the hereditary Prince, Secretary 

 to the Academy of Sciences, etc., and became a very influential 

 person, both on account of his talents and on account of the position 

 of his pupil, who it was supposed would become king on attaining 

 his majority, as his mother was only regent. Correa was made 

 Minister ; and his first act was to overthrow the Inquisition. But 

 the Prince died just as he was coming of age, and Correa was left 

 exposed to the hatred and jealousy of the priests. After a while he 

 obtained permission to go to England, where he lived in the society 

 of the savans of which Sir Joseph Banks' house was the centre. 

 Afterwards he moved to Paris, where he also lived among savans 

 and men of letters, and where he showed the most noble character 

 when the seizure of Portugal by Bonaparte deprived him of all his 

 resources. He possessed the singular faculty of knowing everything 

 apparently without labor. It is only the people of the south who 

 can thus combine great facility with profound idleness. The latter 

 prevented his publishing anything beyond small dissertations^ quite 

 below his talents ; but in conversation all his various knowledge and 

 his ingenious views were charmingly exhibited. In these days 

 Humboldt and Cuvier often came to my lodgings, where they occa- 

 sionally met Correa. Although their celebrity was far above his, 

 and justly so, on account of their published works, yet Correa always 

 got the advantage over them ; and it was by no means the least of 

 the enjoyments of our sociable little dinners to see the sort of defer- 

 ence, and even fear, which Cuvier and Humboldt exhibited in the 

 announcement of their opinions before Correa, who, with the grace 

 and sly maliciousness of a cat, would at once expose their weak sides. 

 Like them, he was familiar with all the historical and natural sci- 

 ences, and he used his vast stores of knowledge with a severe logic 

 and rare sagacity. He spent many hours in my herbarium ; where 



