Cuvier’s Historical Eloge of Werner. 15 
he preserved a deep recollection of it. With his natural good 
humour, he would sometimes say, Such a one is a great minis- 
ter, or an able general, but, he would add with a sigh, he never 
knew how to touch minerals. 
These small eccentricities, at which he was the first to laugh, 
are in perfect agreement with all the qualities of the most cele- 
brated genius, and the most amiable disposition. In this case, 
they never lessened the tender veneration entertained for him by 
those young persons who were always happy to be instructed, 
and warmed by his words and by his attentions. His scholars 
studied his eccentricities only to accommodate themselves to them, 
being anxious to manifest their attachment, even by attending 
to his foibles. 
But the public and posterity will have reason to lament those 
peculiarities, because, by them, they have been deprived of works 
of great value, and which no other person, for a long time, will 
be able to execute so well. It is said, that his great work on 
Mineralogy had begun to be printed, and that the first sheet 
had been composed, but that he could not endure the fatigue of 
correcting the proofs. 
His life was, therefore, entirely passed either in the elevated 
regions of contemplation, or in philosophical and friendly con- 
versation, ^-ignorant of all foreign events, without reading 
even the literary journals, without being at the trouble to 
inform himself whether envy was not sometimes busy with 
his fame. He might still have lived for many years ; for of all 
the methods which he had studied, that of taking care of his own 
health, was not one of those which occupied him the least. 
Among his little whims, his care never to be between two diffe- 
rent streams of air, was one of the most remarkable. But of all 
his precautions, the wisest, without doubt, was the calm of a 
peaceful mind, which did not even wish to be informed of any 
thing that could excite within it any feelings of ill-will. 
The misfortunes of Saxony were alone able to deceive his 
foresight, and to destroy the peace which it had given him. He 
tenderly loved that country with which he had identified him- 
self in a thousand ways ; no offer had been able to make him quit 
it. He was devoted to a prince who protects the sciences, be- 
cause he has profoundly studied them, and whom forty years of 
