196 Biographical Notice of 
emerging from the last dreams of youthful folly, our fiery 
gentleman fell back upon himself, and found himself, at 
his twenty-eighth year, ruined, without profession, without 
family ; if sorrow could not but oppress him, he was far 
from giving way to it; and making a solemn appeal to a 
stout heart and vigorous mind, he determined to rouse a 
degree of courage worthy of his ancestors. 
It is only to a worthless Phrygian slave that one could 
succeed by exclaiming, “ Purchase your master.” Although of 
similar dispositions, M. de Blainville judged it prudent to ac- 
commodate himself to the manners of the age. Chance led 
him to a course of lectures on Natural Philosophy, delivered 
by M. Lefévre-Gineau in the College of France; and here 
he was inspired with a hitherto unknown attraction, the love 
of serious pursuits. He was presented to the Professor as a 
modest neophyte, but he soon made himself to be so far ap- 
preciated as to gain admission to a house in which M. Gineau 
and his colleagues assembled, all of them connected with the . 
higher departments of educational knowledge. Itwasinthe | 
midst of this circle of eminent men, that, for the first time, 
M. de Blainville found himself called to a congenial vocation. 
Nothing could harmonize better with his tastes and the 
tendency of his mind, than the authority of the chair, and the 
dogmatic tone of a master ; the dominating influence which 
superior knowledge exercised over the minds of others, ap- 
peared to him the most enviable of distinctions ; he conceived 
that he had discovered the path which was one day to lead 
him to reputation. | 
From that- moment, continuous and ardent labour en- 
grossed all his faculties. Yielding to judicious advice, he 
began by a profound analysis of human organization by means 
of important researches, and made such prodigious efforts 
and rapid progress, that after two years spent in the 
lecture-rooms and hospitals, he placed himself, by means 
of a remarkable work on Experimental and Comparative 
Physiology, in rivalship with Bichat, and took the title of 
doctor ; leaving, struck with surprise, his noble compatriots, 
the gay companions of his early youth, who saw him, not 
without some feeling of regret, throw off the guise of the im- ° 
prudent and frivolous votary of dissipation. 
