MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 69 
fectly into his solitude: his calmed mind now re- 
vived prodigiously under all these gratifications and 
delights. 
The young Naturalists who had been created by 
his works, impressed with the admiration of his 
genius, though he had been to them an invisible 
oracle, listened to him as a superior being who was 
come to make his estimate of their acquirements ; 
for his long absence had multiplied time, and inter- 
posed many generations between them and him. In 
the frank and ready approbation he bestowed on all 
new discoveries, they recognised, in this excellent 
old man, a mind above the common prepossessions 
of his years; and he always treated his new scho- 
lars, not as a churl, but as a father. It is true that he 
had never been disposed severely to criticise, and that 
in all his works he freely gave to his contemporaries 
their due praise ; a practice which was not less me- 
ritorious as bestowed upon his pupils. It is likewise 
true, that he is, perhaps, of all naturalists of the 
eighteenth century, the one who has least been 
criticised by others. He has sometimes, indeed, 
been accused of a certain ardour in amassing from 
all quarters, and almost of monopolizing the observa- 
tions and subjects of study selected by others; a 
conduct which is calculated to displease those whose , 
limited labours may readily be lost in the blaze of 
glory which legitimately belongs to the man who 
has conceived a vast plan, and without which an 
immensity of facts, which become useful chiefly 
from their approximation, would have been lost to 
