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The high reputation which this great man has long 

 held among the naturalifts throughout the world, 

 might readily perhaps preclude any encomium 

 from our pen fmce, to all lovers of natural fci- 

 cnce, his name itfelf is eulogy, and will doubtlefs 

 very long be infeparable from the idea of his ex- 

 traordinary merit. Might we, neverthelefs, be 

 indulged fo far, we hope the following brief efti- 

 mate of his talents will be thought juft, and eafily 

 deduced from an impartial view of his writings. 



Nature had, in an eminent manner, been liberal 

 in the endowments of his mind. He feems to have 

 been polTefled of a lively imagination, corre6ted 

 however by a ilrong judgment, and guided by the 

 laws of fyflcm. Add to thefe, the moft retentive 

 memory, an unremitting induftry, and the greateft 

 perfeverance in all his purfuirs as is evident from 

 that continued vigour with which he profecuted the 

 defign, that he appears to have formed fo early in 

 life, of totally reforming, and fabricating anew the 

 whole fcience of natural hiftory : and this fabric 

 he raifed, and gave to it a degree of perfedion 

 unknown before ^ and had moreover the un- 

 common felicity of living to fee his own ftruc- 

 ture rife above all others, notwithftanding every 

 difcouragement its author at firft laboured under, 

 and the oppofition it afterwards met with. Neither 

 has any writer more cautiouHy avoided that com- 

 mon error of building his own fame on the ruin 

 of another man's. He every where acknowledged 

 the feveral merits of each author's fyftem and no 

 man appears to have been more fenfibleof the par- 



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