MEMOIR OF BUFFON. XV 



was either wanting, or reserved for his particular friends in private, 

 and he considered that a discusion upon the Sciences should be con- 

 fined to books alone. These opinions may have influenced his wish 

 for comparative privacy, and it is certain that he did not mingle with 

 his contemporaries in literary and scientific fame. 



Vanity has been generally allowed to be the greatest failing in the 

 mind of Buffon, and the pains which he took to work up his writings, 

 and his severe study, have perhaps been too often invidiously referred 

 " to the consideration of what after generations would think regard- 

 ing him." He delighted in reading aloud his own works to his 

 visiters, and chiefly those which he considered his finest pieces. 

 Parts of the Natural History of Man, and that of the Swan, &c, 

 were his favourites. It is but justice to say, however, that a more 

 laudable inducement to recite them, than the mere love of hearing 

 them praised, has been assigned by some of his biographers. "They 

 were read with the view of hearing opinions and receiving correc- 

 tions ;" he willingly received any hint of improprieties of style, and 

 was open to imperfections when pointed out to him. 



He delighted also in what was luxurious or magnificent, and was 

 devoted to his dress almost to the extreme of foppery. He spent 

 much time at his toilet, and even in his latest years had his hair 

 dressed and powdered twice, or three times daily. 



In the private character of Buffon, there is not much to praise. 

 In early youth he had entered into the pleasures and dissipations of 

 life, and licentious habits seem to have been retained to the last. 

 But the great blemish in such a mind was his declared infidelity . 

 it presents one of those exceptions among the persons who have 

 been devoted to the study of Nature ; and it is not easy to imagine 

 a mind apparently with such powers, scarcely acknowledging a 

 Creator, and when noticed, only by an arraignment for what ap- 

 peared wanting or defective in his great works. So openly, indeed, 

 was the freedom of his religious opinions expressed, that the indig- 

 nation of Soi'bonne was provoked. 



Painful as a detail of such opinions must be, it is the duty of every 

 biographer to mention them : and our readers may compare the splen- 

 did talents and humble piety of the subject of our first memoir, with 

 the highly cultivated mind, the bright abilities of the present, whore 

 they but coupled with the disavowment of the Being from whom 

 all these precious gifts were derived. 



The works by which Buffon is now best known, are those upon 

 Natural History. The first of these, " Natural History, General and 

 Particular," amounted to fifteen volumes quarto ; in the anatomical 



