ouvrages importans à mettre au jour, les matériaux préparés, tout était disposé dans ma tête, il ne me restait plus qu'à écrire.”- "You see how it is, how different the man of Tuesday (we had met on that day) from the man of Sunday: and so many things too that remained for me to do! three important works to bring out, the materials prepared, all disposed in order in my head, I had nothing left to do but to write." In four hours afterwards that wonderfullyorganised head had become a mere mass of insensible

matter.

Besides the works above enumerated, and many memoirs in the transactions of the scientific bodies of Paris, he has given to the world, in four octavo volumes, a History of the Progress of the Physical Sciences, from 1789 to 1827, which evinces his genius and extensive erudition. The first volume is a reprint of a report which he presented, as Perpetual Secretary of the Institute, to Napoleon, in 1808, on the Progress of the Physical Sciences from 1789 to 1807. In the same capacity, during thirty-two years, he pronounced the customary Eloges upon deceased members of the Institute. These are collected in three octavo volumes, and bear witness to the versatility of his genius and the extent of his attainments; for whether he is recording the merits of a mathematician, a chemist, a botanist, a geologist, or the cultivator of any other department of science, he shows himself equally conversant with his subject.

He lived at the Jardin des Plantes for nearly forty years, surrounded by the objects which engrossed so great a portion of his thoughts, and there received every Saturday the men of science of Paris, and all others who visited that capital from any part of the world. Professors and pupils met in his rooms to listen with instruction and delight to his conversation, for he was accessible to all. Although compelled to

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be a very rigid economist of his time, he was so goodnatured and considerate, that, if any person who had business to transact with him called at an unexpected hour, he never sent him away; saying, that one who lived so far off had no right to deny himself. Everything in his house was so arranged as to secure economy of time: his library consisted of several apartments, and each great subject he attended to had a separate room allotted to it; and he usually worked in the apartment belonging to the subject he was at the moment engaged with, so that he might be surrounded with his materials. His ordinary custom, when he returned from attending public business in Paris, was to go at once to his study, passing a few minutes by the way in the room where his family sat; which latterly consisted of Madame Cuvier and her daughter by a former marriage. He came back when dinner was announced, usually with a book in his hand; and returned soon after dinner to his study, where he remained till eleven. He then came to Madame Cuvier's room, and had generally some of the lighter literature of the day read aloud to him. Sometimes the book selected was of a graver cast, for it is said that during the last year of his life he had the greater part of Cicero read to him. His manner was courteous, kind, and encouraging: every one who took an interest in any subject with which Cuvier was familiar felt assured that he might approach him without fear of meeting with a cold or discouraging reception.

He had four children, but lost them all. The last taken from him was a daughter, who was suddenly carried off by consumption on the eve of her marriage. He was most tenderly attached to her, and it required all the efforts of his powerful mind to prevent his sinking under the blow. He found distraction by

intense thought on other subjects, but not consolation, for the wound never healed.

On Tuesday, the 8th of May, 1832, he opened his usual course at the College of France, with a particularly eloquent introductory lecture, full of enthusiasm in his subject, to the delight of his numerous audience. As he left the room he was attacked with the first symptoms of the disease which was so soon to prove fatal: it was a paralytic seizure. He was well enough, however, to preside the next day at the Committee of the Council of State, but that was the last duty he performed. He died on the following Sunday, leaving behind him an imperishable name, which will be held in honour in the most advanced state of human learning.

WALTER SCOTT was born in the Old Town of Edinburgh, April 15, 1771, in a house at the head of the College Wynd, which has been pulled down to make way for the new buildings of the University. His father was a writer to the signet, his grandfather a farmer resident in Roxburghshire, who traced his descent to the ancient Border family of Scott of Harden, His infancy gave no promise of the robust manhood which he attained; and, in addition to general weakness of constitution, his right foot received an early injury, which rendered him lame through life. This delicacy of health induced his parents to send him, when almost an infant, to his grandfather's farm at Sandyknow in Roxburghshire, adjoining the Border

fortress called Smailholm Tower, in the heart of that romantic pastoral district whose scenery and legends he has rendered famous. *"His residence at this secluded spot, which after early boyhood was, we believe, occasionally renewed during the summer vacations of the High School and College, was undoubtedly fraught with many advantages, physical and mental. It was here that his feeble constitution was, by the aid of free air and exercise, gradually strengthened into robustness; and, though he never got rid of his lameness, it was so far overcome as to be in after-life rather a deformity than (an inconvenience. It was here that his love of ballad lore and border story was fostered into a passion; and it was here, doubtless, and at the house of one of his uncles, Mr. Thomas Scott of Woolee, also a Roxburghshire farmer, that he early acquired that intimate acquaintance with the manners, character, and language of the Scottish peasantry, which he afterwards turned to such admirable account in his novels."

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In October, 1779, he entered the High School of Edinburgh, which he attended during four years. He there acquired the character of being a remarkably active and dauntless boy, full of all manner of fun, and ready for all manner of mischief;" and, so far from being timid or quiet on account of his lameness, that very defect (as he himself remarked to be usually the case in similar circumstances with boys of enterprising disposition) prompted him to take the lead among all the stirring boys in the street where he lived, or the school which he attended. In Greek

*This, and the other passages marked with inverted commas, except those taken from Scott's Autobiography, are derived from a memoir of Sir Walter Scott published in the Penny Magazine, No. 37, and written by Scott's countryman and acquaintance, the late Mr. Pringle.