58 MEMOIR OP LAMARCK. 



attention was directed, together with some of the 

 results to which his investigations led him. After 

 his establishment in the Museum of Natural History, 

 much of his time was occupied with the objects 

 whose history he was appointed to teach; and so 

 favourably were his labours in this department re- 

 ceived by the public, that his interest as well as his 

 inclination would have conspired to make him cul- 

 tivate it to the uttermost. But his exertions re- 

 ceived an early check, and were at last entirely 

 stopped, by the inroads of a most afflicting cala- 

 mity. His eyes had long been weak, and as he 

 advanced in years, they became so diseased, that he 

 was obliged to refrain from using them for the 

 examination of any minute object. Hence it was 

 that he had recourse to the celebrated Latreille to 

 assist him in that part of his system of invertebrata 

 which related to insects. Notwithstanding every 

 precaution, the disorder increased, and at last pro- 

 duced total blindness, which continued till his death. 

 " This event was the more distressing," says Cuvier, 

 " because it overtook him in such circumstances that 

 .he could obtain none of those means of alleviation 

 which might otherwise have been procured. He had 

 been married four times, and was the father of seven 

 children. The whole of his little patrimony, and even 

 the fruits of his early economy, were lost in one of 

 those hazardous investments which shameless spe- 

 culators so often hold out as baits to the credulous. 

 His retired life, the consequence of his youthful 

 habits, and attachment to systems so little in accord- 



