I 



«04 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ft. III. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



Birth aid Early Life of Butfon and Linneens compared — Buffon's 

 Woxk on Natural History — Daubenton wrote the Anatomical Part 

 — BufTon's Books very interesting, but not always accurate — He first 

 worked out tne Distribution of Animals — Stmggles of Linnseus 

 with Poverty — Mr. Clifford befriends him — He becomes Professor at 

 Upsala — He was the first to give Specific Names to Animals and 

 Plants — Explanation of his Descriptions of Plants — Use of the 

 Linnsean or Artificial System — Afterwards superseded by the Natural 

 System — Linnaeus first used accurate terms in describing Plants 

 and Animals — Character of Linnaeus — Sale of his Collection, and 

 Chase by the Swedish Man-of-war. 



Advance of Natural History — Buflfon and Linnaeus. — In 

 the year 1707 two men were bom, the one in France and 

 the other in Sweden, whose names have become almost 

 equally well-known, although they were by no means equally 

 great. 



The Frenchman, George-Louis Le Clerc Buffon, the son 

 of a counsellor of the parliament of Dijon, was born on his 

 father's estate in Burgundy. The Swede, Karl Linnaeus, the 

 grandson of a peasant and son of a poor Swedish clergy- 

 man, was bom in a small village called Rashult, in the south 

 of Sweden. Buffon enjoyed the best education which 

 France could afford him, with plenty of opportunity to culti- 

 vate his love of natural history. At one-and-twenty he 

 succeeded to a handsome property, and after travelling for 

 some time settled down to a life of ease and literature, partly 



