306 Documents in Commemoration of Baron Cuvier. 
cherished, and at which he had labored so many years, seemed to him 
to be a needful finish to all his works; but the melancholy doubt ex- ~ 
pressed in his letter (if I live) was but too soon verified. It would 
be the most appropriate honor that could be rendered to the glory of 
Cuvier to publish those original drawings, the perfection of which is 
known to all, and which, joined to the new edition of his comparative 
anatomy, would supply in part the great work which he had in pros- 
pect. Thus the man whose fruitful labors (not to mention his genius) 
all Europe has admired, has left, inedited, immense works, vial 
would seem to demand the devotion of a whole life. 
- We may now ask, did this laborious attention to natural hist 
exclude him from other literary pursuits? Certainly not. Read the 
eulogies which he pronounced as perpetual secretary of the Acade- 
my of Sciences, in which pass in review so many men and so great 
a variety of subjects! From the depth of acquirements which he dis- 
played, for example, in the account which he gave of the labors of 
Adanson, we are certain that none but a naturalist of the first order 
could have written it; but in reading his account of Bonnet, or 
Priestley we discover that no branch of human knowledge was foreign 
to him: in that of Lemonier, he betrays the man of sensibility, and the 
taste and graceful imagination of ascholar. Throughout these produe-— 
tions, are intermingled the most profound reflexions on the progress sof 
science, the most penetrating views of human nature and of the social 
condition of the period in which he lived. In all is there inter- 
mingled that love of virtue, that feeling of the dignity of intellec- 
tual power which was one of the liveliest impressions of his mind: 
It is to this elevated sentiment that we must attribute the impartiality 
of his eulogies, of his reports, and his literary and scientific decisions, 
the entire absence of all intrigue, the zeal which he manifested for 
all the establishments with which he was connected, the ardor with 
which he protected and encouraged young men of talents, and the 
noble disinterestedness which induced him to spite no vigensst a 
the # prosecution of his scientific inboes® 
1 1 * Anence 
aii oe BLICEL shsle 
upon natural history. He may be said to have almost created, 273 graat 
were the changes and enlargements which he effected) the cabinet of 
comparative anatomy which constitutes one of the most admirable- 
of the Paris museum of natural history, now the admiration - 
of Europe. Frequently placed, by the choice of his colleagues, at 
the head of that ere he powerfully contributed to its prog- 
