6 sB C L E 
the comte de Marfm, and the Switterland alliance. 7. 
The Battles of Alexander, from Le Brun, fix fmall long 
plates, including the title, which reprefents the pi&ure- 
gallery at the Gobelins. The firft impreffions of the tent 
of Darius, which plate makes part of this fet, is diftin- 
g'uilhed by the fhoulder of the woman, who is feated in 
the front, being without the fhadow, which was afterwards 
added; for which reafon they are called the prints 'with 
the naked Jhoulder. S. The Entry of Alexander into Ba¬ 
bylon, a middling-fized plate, lengtiiwife. In the hi lt 
imprefiions, the face of Alexander is feen in profile; in 
the fecond, it is a three-quarter face, and therefore called 
the print with the bead turned. 
CLERC (George-Louis le), count Buffon, a naturalift 
and writer of great eminence, was the fon of a counfellor 
of the parliament of Dijon, at whofe feat at Montbard in 
Burgundy he was born, September 7, 1707. He fludied 
at Dijon ; and his father intended him for the profefiion 
of the law, but his decided inclination for the fciences 
fruftrated this purpofe. Though of an aftive frame of 
body, and an ardent temperament, his earlieft paflion was 
for aftronomy, and its bafis geometry ,- and Euclid’s Ele¬ 
ments was his conllant pocket companion. At the age 
of twenty he travelled into Italy, where the obje&s of his 
curiofity w r ere lefs the productions of art than the pheno- ’ 
mens of nature, to the fiudy of which he devoted all his 
faculties. The art of writing was, however, an objeCl of 
his conllant and fedulous attention; for he thought that 
truth appeared to the belt advantage under the decora¬ 
tions of eloquence. He fucceeded at twenty-one to a 
liandfome property; and, after concluding his travels 
with a vifit to England, he commenced a life of eafe and 
literature, divided between Paris and his eftate at Mont¬ 
bard. His firft publication was a tranfiation from the 
EngliQi of Hales’s Vegetable Statics, in 1735 ; followed in 
1740 by a tranfiation from the Latin, of Newton’s Fluxi¬ 
ons. He w r as appointed, in 1739, fuperintendant of the 
royal garden and cabinet, which, as he came to be known, 
be enriched with the productions of all the parts of the 
world. To the advantages of fituation he enjoyed, he 
added the effential quality of indultry, and is laid to have 
pafifed fourteen hours every day in lludy. This, how¬ 
ever, mutt have been in his intervals of country retire¬ 
ment, fince he was fond of fociety, and was by no means 
infenfible to the attractions of the fair fex. Of his great 
application, however, he gave a convincing proof by the 
publication of his celebrated w’ork, “ Natural Hiftory, ge¬ 
neral and particular,” which commenced in 1749 ; and at 
its completion, in 1767, reached to 15 vols. 4to. or 31 vols. 
i2tno. To this were afterwards added fupplements a- 
mounting to feveral more volumes. In the purely ana¬ 
tomical part of this work, he had the afiiftance of d’Au- 
benton ; the reft was wholly his own compofition. In 
this great performance, the author takes a range circum- 
fcribed only by the bounds of nature herlelf. He begins 
with a theory of the earth, which, with the other planets, 
he fuppofes to have been originally a mafs of liquefied 
matter, dafned out of the body of the fun by the violent 
illapfe of a comet. He then covers it with ocean, from 
which he forms ftrata by depofition, and mountains by 
the flux and reflux of the tide. Subterraneous fires, erup¬ 
tions, and earthquakes, effeCl other changes ; and the 
world we now inhabit is but the ruins of a former world. 
It is needlefs to follow him through fpeculations of this 
fort, which ingenuity may make plaufible, but which can 
never rife even to probability, fince nothing is fo unlikely 
as that the human faculties fiiould be able to arrive at 
the folution of fo mighty a problem as the creation of a 
habitable globe. Button s theory of the earth will fink 
into oblivion, as fo many others have done ; but his grand 
view's and ftriking defcriptions of its prefent ftate, will 
remain as brilliant dilplays of eloquence, combined with 
exienfive information. Proceeding to the population of 
the earth with living creatures, lie confiders the analogies 
between vegetable and animal life, and again plunges 
z 
C L E 
into hypothetical theory in order to explain the myfteiy 
of animal generation. He conceives certain living orga¬ 
nic molecules, of the fame nature with organized beings, 
and exifting equally in animal and vegetable matter; 
thefe, in the procefs of nutrition, are received into inter¬ 
nal moulds, of which animal and-vegetable bodies are 
framed, where they are affimi'lated into the fame lubftance 
as the parts to which they go, and thus nourilh them. 
When this nutritive matter fuperabounds, it is detached 
from all parts of the body, and dep fited in a fluid form 
in one or more refervoirs. This conftitutes a prolific 
matter, which is ready to produce a new animal, or ve¬ 
getable, of the fame fpecies, when it meets with a proper 
matrix. The fuppofed feminal animalculae are only theie 
organic particles, which are fimilar in both fexes, but 
mutt unite in order to produce a new animal by way of 
generation. Of this theory it is difficult to form any 
clear conception ; and it has, moreover, been difproved 
by phyfiologifts of eminence. Its fate will, therefore, be 
that of the writer’s planetary theory; and, in this cafe 
alfo, his fame will ultimately depend only upon his nar¬ 
rations of fact, and the conclufions deduced from them by 
a large and comprehenlive mind. 
His natural hiftory of animals properly commences with 
that of man, the undoubted head of the clafs. To his 
hiftory from the cradle to the grave, the opening and 
maturation of his bodily and mental powers, the nature 
of his fenfes, and the feveral varieties of the human fpe¬ 
cies, he devotes a large fpace, full of curious difcuffions. 
M. d’Aubenton contributed much to this part of the 
work. He then treats on the nature of brute animals in 
general; and he draws a ftrong line of dittinClion between 
them and men, by denying them a foul, and a memory 
properly fo called, and making ail their aClions to fpring 
from external impreflions. The clafs of quadrupeds alone 
occupies all the remainder of this firft work. Either from 
the pride of following a plan of his own, or from a con¬ 
tempt of the petty dittinClions on which the arrange¬ 
ments of many fyttematic naturalills are founded, Button 
rejefils all the received principles of clafllfication, and 
throws his fubjeCls into groups laxly formed from gene¬ 
ral points of refemblance. This ifiethod doubtlefs en¬ 
ables him to take large and noble views of nature, and 
to purlue the plans of her own economy, which difre- 
gards and confounds all the artificial limits attempted to 
be eftablifhed by the fpirit of fyftem. At the fame time 
it is evident, that no clafs of beings but one io little nu¬ 
merous as that of quadrupeds, could be accurately treated 
of by a writer in (o loofe a method. In this matter, as 
in molt other particulars, Button is a direCl, and probably 
an intentional, contrail to Linnaeus, with whom fyftem 
is the leading objeCl, conftituting both his ftrength and 
his weaknefs. We fhall not follow our naturalift through 
the divilions of his extenlive work, of which the arrange¬ 
ment certainly is not the valuable part. It is in the de¬ 
tail of rafts, and in the ftrain of enlarged and philofophie 
oblervation refulting from them, tiiat the peculiar merit 
of Button confitts. A few remarks on thefe may ferve to 
characterize him. 
No writer ever expended fo much eloquence in the de- 
fcription of animal life. The hiltorian of a great empire 
could not affume a ftile of higher tone, than he has done 
in painting the manners and habits of the lion, the horfe, 
the elephant, and others of his favourites. Perhaps he 
has violated good tafte in tints rifing above the level of 
hisfubjeCt; and it cannot be doubted that this paflion 
for high painting has fometimes made him ttray from the 
limits of iimple truth, into the regions of fancy. Yet he 
abounds in particular and minute oblervation, often the 
refult of his own experience; and fcarcely any fludent 
of nature can boall of having added more to the flock of 
authenticated fad than he. But he was occafionally 
warped by attachment to theory, as well as by the purfuit 
of eloquence. On various topics he had formed general 
theorems, which he was inclined to fuppoit againfl ex¬ 
ceptions. 
