AN ECCENTRIC NATURALIST. 169 
alone, and left no salable assets; and his landlord 
refused to allow his friends —such friends as he 
had —to enter the house to give him a decent 
burial. He wished to make good the unpaid 
rent by selling the body to a medical college; 
but at night, so the story goes, a physician who 
had studied botany with Rafinesque got a few 
friends together, and broke into the garret and 
carried away the body, which they buried in a 
little churchyard outside the city limits, now oblit- 
erated by the growth of Philadelphia. 
American naturalists have greater honor now 
than forty years ago. Rafinesque died unnoticed, 
and was buried only by stealth. A whole nation 
wept for Agassiz. But a difference was in the 
mien as well as in the times. Both were great 
naturalists and learned men. Both had left high 
reputations in Europe to cast their lot with Amer- 
ica. Agassiz’s great heart went out toward every 
one with whom he came in contact; but Rafi- 
nesque loved no man or woman, and died, as he 
had lived, alone. If some one who loved him had 
followed him to the last, it might have been with 
Rafinesque as with Albrecht Diirer: “ ‘ Eimigravit’ 
is the inscription on the headstone where he lies.” 
But there was no one; and there is neither head- 
stone nor inscription, and we know not even the 
place where he rests after his long journey. 
Rafinesque’s last recorded words were these: 
“Time renders justice to all alike.’ And to the 
justice of Time we may leave him, 
