X MEMOIR OF BUFFON. 



This constant study and perseverance, at a period so early, and 

 when youthful minds are generally most idly inclined, was attended 

 with very brilliant results. He is said to have anticipated Newton in 

 some of his discoveries, and, in after-life, withheld the circumstances. 



At the college of Dijon he became acquainted with the young Duke 

 of Kingston, who was travelling in Italy, accompanied by a tutor. 

 Buffon fortunately became acquainted with both ; and the latter, being 

 a man of considerable attainments, and devoted to the sciences, found 

 a ready access to the mind of a youth endowed with such temper and 

 abilities. It was agreed that he should accompany them in the prose- 

 cution of their travels, and he became equally acceptable to his friends, 

 and pleased with their society ; afterwards remarking, that while the 

 one became his companion in pleasure and amusements, the other 

 gained his esteem by his more solid qualifications. 



They travelled amidst all that is placid and sublime in nature, or 

 lovely in the arts, he continued to pursue the more abstracted depart- 

 ments of science, almost neglecting the artificial productions ; and at 

 this same period seems to have imbibed many of the theories and 

 ideas, which fancifully, but eloquently adorned the chapters of the 

 first volumes of his great work. 



At the age of twenty-one Buffon lost his mother ; and by her death 

 succeeded to an income of nearly twelve thousand pounds yearly. An 

 accession of such an amount to his fortune, enabled him to follow out 

 every design., which his studies had sugge sted ; but it also allowed him 

 to pursue, with almost unlimited control, every indulgence which his 

 inclinations prompted. His European travels still appear to have 

 been continued, and after his return to Montbard, being embroiled in 

 some affair of honour which required his absence until matters were 

 arranged, he visited Paris and England, and did not finally settle at his 

 paternal residence, till about the age of twenty-five, when he deter- 

 mined quietly to pursue the studies in which he had so much de- 

 lighted. He seems to have laid down for himself, even at this early 

 period, a decided and rigorous division of his time, and to have at- 

 tended generally to the Sciences, Natural History, and Polite Litera- 

 ture. 



The division of his time and labour was thus : " After he was 

 dressed, he dictated letters, and regulated his domestic affairs ; and at 

 five o'clock he regulated his studies at the pavilion called the Tower 

 of St. Louis. This pavilion was situated at the extremity of the 

 garden, about a furlong from the house ; and the only furniture which 

 is contained was a large wooden secretary and an armed chair. 

 "No books or pictures relieved the naked appearance of the apartment, 



