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Buffon is reported to have said—and the vanity which was his predominant foible may have given some colour to the assertion—“I know but five great geniuses, Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself.” Probably no author ever received from his contemporaries so many excitements to such an exhibition of presumption and self-consequence. Lewis XV. conferred upon him a title of nobility; the Empress of Russia was his correspondent; Prince Henry of Prussia addressed him in the language of the most exaggerated compliment; and his statue was set up during his life-time in the cabinet of Lewis XVI., with such an inscription as is rarely bestowed even upon the most illustrious of past ages^[2]. After the lapse of half a century we may examine the personal character, and the literary merits, of this celebrated man with a more sober judgment.

The history of Buffon is singularly barren of incident. At an early age he devoted himself to those studies of natural history which have rendered his name so famous; and at eighty years old he was still labouring at the completion of the great plan to which he had dedicated his life.

George Lewis le Clerc Buffon was born at Montbar, in Burgundy, on the 7th September, 1707. His father, Benjamin le Clerc, was a man of fortune, who could afford to bestow the most careful education upon his children, and leave them unfettered in the choice of an occupation. The young Buffon had formed an acquaintance at Dijon with an Englishman of his own age, the Duke of Kingston. The tutor of this nobleman was, fortunately, an accomplished student of the physical sciences; and he gave a powerful impulse to the talents of Buffon, by leading them forward in their natural direction. Without the assistance of this judicious friend, the inclination of his mind towards honourable and useful exertion might have been suppressed by the temptations which too easily beset those who have an ample command of the goods of fortune. It was not so with Buffon. Although he succeeded, at the age of twenty-one, to the estate of his mother, which produced him an annual income of 12,000l., he devoted himself with unremitting assiduity to the acquisition of knowledge. Having travelled in Italy, and resided some little time in England, he returned to his own country, to dedicate himself to the constant labours of a man of letters. His first productions were translations of two English works of very different character—‘Hales’ Vegetable Statics,’ and ‘Newton’s Fluxions;’ and, following up the pursuits for which he exhibited his love in these translations, he carried on a series of experiments on the strength of timber, and constructed a burning mirror, in imitation of that of Archimedes.

The devotion to science which Buffon had thus manifested marked him out for an appointment which determined the course of his future life. His friend, Du Fay, who was the Intendant of the ‘Jardin du Roi’ (now called the ‘Jardin des Plantes’), on his death-bed recommended Buffon as the person best calculated to give a right direction to this establishment for the cultivation of natural history. Buffon seized upon the opportunities which this appointment afforded him of prosecuting his favourite studies, with that energetic perseverance for which he was remarkable. He saw that natural history had to be written in a manner that might render it the most attractive species of knowledge; and that philosophical views, and eloquent descriptions, might supersede the dry nomenclatures, and the loose, contradictory, and too-often fabulous narratives which resulted from the crude labours of ill-informed compilers. To carry forward his favourite object, it was necessary that the museum, over which he had now the control, should be put in order and rendered more complete. He obtained from the government considerable funds for the erection of proper buildings; and the galleries of the ‘Jardin des Plantes,’ which now hold the fine collection of mammals and birds, were raised under his superintendence. Possessing, therefore, the most complete means which Europe afforded, he applied himself to the great task of describing the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms of nature. A large portion of this immense undertaking was left unperformed, although, to use his own words, he laboured fifty years at his desk; and much of what he accomplished was greatly diminished in value by his determination to see natural objects only through the clouded medium of his own theories. But, nevertheless, he has produced a work which, with all its faults, is an extraordinary monument of genius and industry, and which will long entitle him to the gratitude of mankind. “We read Buffon,” says Condorcet, “to be interested as well as instructed. He will continue to excite a useful enthusiasm for the natural sciences; and the world will long be indebted to him for the pleasures with which a young mind for the first time looks into nature and the consolations with which a soul weary of the storms of life reposes upon the sight of the immensity of beings peaceably submitted to necessary and eternal laws.”

Buffon was in some particulars unqualified for the laborious duty he had undertaken. He delighted to indulge in broad and general views, and to permit his imagination to luxuriate in striking descriptions. But he had neither the patience, nor the love of accuracy, which would have carried him into those minute details which give to natural history its highest value. He, however, had the merit and the good fortune, in the early stages of his undertaking, to associate himself with a fellow-labourer who possessed those qualities in which he was deficient. The first fifteen volumes of ‘L’Histoire Naturelle,’ which treat of the theory of the earth, the nature of animals, and the history of man and viviparous quadrupeds, were published between 1749 and 1767, as the joint work of Buffon and Daubenton. The general theories, the descriptions of the phenomena of nature, and the pictures of the habits of animals, were by Buffon. Daubenton confined himself to the precise delineation of their physical character, both in their external forms and their anatomy. But Daubenton refused to continue his assistance in the ‘History of Birds;’ for Buffon, unwilling that the fame which he had acquired should be partaken by one whom he considered only as a humble and subordinate labourer, allowed an edition of the History of Quadrupeds to be published, of which the descriptive and anatomical parts had been greatly abridged. In the History of Birds, therefore, Buffon had to seek for other associates; and the form of the work was greatly changed from that of the previous volumes. The particular descriptions are here very meagre, and anatomical details are almost entirely excluded. In some of the volumes, Buffon was assisted by Guéneau de Montbeillard, who, instead of endeavouring to attain the accuracy of Daubenton, affected to imitate the style of his employer. To the three last volumes of the Birds the Abbé Bexon lent his aid. The nine volumes of Birds appeared between 1770 and 1783. Buffon published alone his ‘History of Minerals,’ which appeared in five volumes, between 1783 and 1788. Seven volumes of Supplements complete the Natural History. The first appeared in 1773; the last was not published till the year after its author’s death, in 1789. The fifth volume of these Supplements is a distinct work, the Epochs of Nature^[3].

The study of natural history, and the composition of his great work, occupied the mind of Buffon from his first appointment as Intendant of the ‘Jardin du Roi,’ to within a few days of his death. In the prosecution of the plan he had laid down, he never permitted the slightest interruption. Pleasure and indolence had their attractions;—but they never held him for many hours from his favourite pursuits. Buffon spent the greater part of his time at Montbar, where, during some years, his friend Daubenton also resided. It was here that Buffon composed nearly the whole of his works. Many interesting details have been preserved of his habits of life, and his mode of composition. He was, like all men who have accomplished great literary undertakings, a severe economist of his time. The employment of every day was fixed with the greatest exactness. He used almost invariably to rise at five o’clock, compelling his man-servant to drag him out of bed whenever he was unwilling to get up. “I owe to poor Joseph,” he used to say, “ten or twelve volumes of my works.” At the end of his garden was a pavilion which served him as a study. Here he was seated for many hours of every day, in an old leathern chair, before a table of black birch, with his papers arranged in a large walnut-tree escritoire. Before he began to write he was accustomed to meditate for a long time upon his subject. Composition was to him a real delight; and he used to declare that he had spent twelve or fourteen hours successively at his desk, continuing to the last in a state of pleasure. His endeavours to obtain the utmost correctness of expression furnished a remarkable proof of the persevering quality of his mind. He composed, and copied, and read his works to friends, and re-copied, till he was entirely satisfied. It is said that he made eleven transcripts of the Epochs of Nature. In his domestic habits there was little to admire in the character of Buffon. His conversation was trifling and licentious, and the grossness which too often discloses itself in his writings was ill-concealed in his own conduct. He paid the most minute attention to dress, and delighted in walking to church to exhibit his finery to his wondering neighbours. Although he was entirely devoid of religious principle, and constantly endeavoured in his writings to throw discredit upon the belief of a great First Cause, he regularly attended high mass, received the communion, and distributed alms to pious beggars. In his whole character there appears a total absence of that simplicity which is the distinguishing attribute of men of the very highest genius.

The literary glory of Buffon, although surpassed, or even equalled, during his life, by none of his contemporaries, with the exception perhaps of Voltaire and Rousseau, has not increased, and is perhaps materially diminished, after having been tried by the opinions of half a century. In literature, as well as in politics, as we have learnt to attach a greater value to accurate facts, have we become less captivated by the force of eloquence alone. Buffon gave an extraordinary impulse to the love of natural history, by surrounding its details with splendid images, and escaping from its rigid investigations by bold and dazzling theories. He rejected classification; and took no pains to distinguish by precise names the objects which he described, because such accuracy would have impeded the progress of his magnificent generalizations. Without classification, and an accurate nomenclature, natural history is a mere chaos. Buffon saw the productions of nature only in masses. He made no endeavour to delineate with perfect accuracy any individual of that immense body, nor to trace the relations of an individual to all the various forms of being by which it is surrounded. Although he was a profound admirer of Newton, and classed Bacon amongst the most illustrious of men, he constantly deviated from the principle of that philosophy upon which all modern discovery has been founded. He carried onward his hypotheses with little calculation and less experiment. And yet, although they are often misapplied, he has collected an astonishing number of facts; and even many of his boldest generalities have been based upon a sufficient foundation of truth, to furnish important assistance to the investigations of more accurate inquirers. The persevering obliquity with which he turns away from the evidence of Design in the creation, to rest upon some vague notions of a self-creative power, both in animate and inanimate existence, is one of the most unpleasant features of his writings. How much higher services might Buffon have rendered to natural history had he been imbued not only with a spirit of accurate and comprehensive classification, but with a perception of the constant agency of a Creator, of both of which merits he had so admirable an example in our own Ray.

The style of Buffon, viewed as an elaborate work of art, and without regard to the great object of style, that of conveying thoughts in the clearest and simplest manner, is captivating from its sustained harmony and occasional grandeur. But it is a style of a past age. Even in his own day, it was a theme for ridicule with those who knew the real force of conciseness and simplicity. Voltaire described it as ‘empoulé;’ and when some one talked to him of ‘L’Histoire Naturelle,’ he drily replied, ‘Pas si naturelle.’ But Buffon was not carried away by the mere love of fine writing. He knew his own power; and, looking at the state of science in his day, he seized upon the instrument which was best calculated to elevate him amongst his contemporaries. The very exaggerations of his style were perhaps necessary to render natural history at once attractive to all descriptions of people. Up to his time it had been a dry and repulsive study. He first clothed it with the picturesque and poetical; threw a moral sentiment around its commonest details; exhibited animals in connection with man, in his mightiest and most useful works; and described the great phenomena of nature with a pomp of language which had never before been called to the service of philosophical investigation. The publication of his works carried the study of natural history out of the closets of the few, to become a source of delight and instruction to all men.

Buffon died at Paris on the 16th April, 1788, aged 81. He was married, in 1762, to Mademoiselle de St. Bélin; and he left an only son, who succeeded to his title. This unfortunate young man perished on the scaffold, in 1795, almost one of the last victims of the fury of the revolution. When he ascended to the guillotine he exclaimed, with great composure, “My name is Buffon.”

A succinct and clear memoir of Buffon, by Cuvier, in the Biographie Universelle, may be advantageously consulted. Nearly all the details of his private life are derived from a curious work by Rénault de Séchelles, entitled Voyage à Montbar, which, like many other domestic histories of eminent men, has the disgrace of being founded upon a violation of the laws of hospitality.

2. Majestati naturæ par ingenium.

3. The best edition of the works of Buffon is the first, of 36 vols. 4to.