12 MEMOIRS OF 



di'upeds and birds as a first-rate naturalist. He 

 copied the plates of the above work, and coloured 

 them according to the printed descriptions, 

 either with paint or pieces of silk. He was never 

 without a volume of this author in his pocket, 

 which was read again and again ; and frequently 

 he was roused from its pages to take liis place 

 in the class repeating Cicero and Virgil. The 

 admiration which he felt at this youthful period 

 for his great predecessor never ceased, and in 

 public, as well as private circles, he never failed 

 to express it. The charms of BufFon's style, a 

 beauty to which M. Cuvier was very sensible, 

 had always afforded him the highest pleasure, 

 and he felt a sort of gratitude to him, not only 

 for the great zeal he had evinced in tlie cause of 

 natural history, not only for the enjoyment 

 afforded to his youthful leisure, but for the 

 many proselytes who had been attracted by the 

 magic of his language. When the student had 

 ripened into the great master, M. Cuvier found 

 me deeply absorbed by a passage of BuHbn; and 

 he then told me what his own feelings had been 

 on first reading him, and tiiat this impression had 

 never been destroyed in maturer years. He had 

 been obliged, for the sake of science, to point 

 out the errors committed by this eloquent na- 



