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Printed by Ballantyne and Company, Paul's Work, Edinburgh. T THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. JANUARY, 1836. No. CXXVI. ART. I.-1. Memoirs of Baron Cuvier. By MRS R. LEE. 8vo, London: 1833. 2. Eloge of Baron Cuvier, delivered in the Chamber of Peers on BY BARON PASQUIER, President of (Translated in Professor JAMESON'S By C. L. LAURILLARD, Conservator of the Cabinet of Anatomy in the Museum of Natural History of Paris. (Ibid.) 4. Death of Cuvier. By M. DECANDOLLE. (Ibid.) T HERE is no task beset with greater difficulties than that of forming a just estimate of the talents of great men, who derive their reputation from the exercise of different faculties of the mind, or from the study of different departments of knowledge. The naturalist, who arranges the objects of his research in splendid halls, and displays at one view the wonders of the remotest ages, and the most distant kingdoms, is justly honoured with a high degree of contemporary fame; the public lecturer, who delights his audience by the variety of his illustrations, the vividness of his descriptions, and the fascination of his eloquence, acquires among his hearers a still more dazzling reputation; the philosophical writer, whose powers of combination and analysis. enable him to classify what is insulated, and to give unity and system to the fragments of desultory knowledge, lays the basis of a high and durable reputation; while the philosopher, who establishes new laws, who lays open new fields of research, and who throws the light of his genius over the darkest passages of na VOL. LXII, NO. CXXVI. ture, earns a name which can perish only with the records of his achievements. But the chaplet of immortality is not restricted to the students of natural phenomena, or the promoters of abstract knowledge. The statesman, who governs mankind by mild and equal laws, and blends into harmony the conflicting elements of society; and the philanthropist, who blesses the poor with education and knowledge, and assuages the moral and physical evils of humanity, will receive from a wider circle the homage of a higher and more affectionate admiration. We have not mentioned these various claims of great men in order to weigh their intellectual merits, or to determine the tribute of glory which they will each levy from their contemporaries or from posterity, and still less to decide in which, or in how many of them, the celebrated man who forms the subject of this article may be justly ranked. Those who have known this great man, and have followed him throughout his brilliant and diversified career, will not charge us with overstrained panegyrie, when we say that, in all the lists of fame which we have enumerated, he not only attained a pre-eminent distinction, but acquired a reputation in each, which might have gratified the ambition of any common aspirant for fame. In the splendid museum of natural history and comparative anatomy, which he almost created, we shall see him in the character of an indefatigable collector, a judicious classifier, and a skilful anatomist. As a lecturer on the same subject in the Jardin des Plantes, and in the College of France, he shone as a successful teacher, and enchanted crowded audiences by the magic of his eloquence. As a secretary to the Institute, he acquired, by his Eloges, the reputation of the most learned, and eloquent, and powerful writer of the day. As a systematic author, his unwearied research, his lucid arrangement, and his pleasing, his perspicuous, and his nervous style, placed him above the philosophical naturalists of every age. As an original enquirer, his discoveries in fossil geology have raised him to the highest distinction, and given birth to new trains of research, which are fast disclosing to us the structure of our planet, and the nature of the convulsions with which it has been so often shaken. Minister of Public Instruction, as Chancellor of the University, and Inspector-General of Education, he conferred on the colleges of France, on her schools, on her religious and charitable establishments, the richest and most enduring benefits; and, as a statesman charged with high legislative functions, he obtained for the French people many valuable ameliorations in their laws, and many solid improvements in their political institutions. As The history of such a man possesses an interest not only in his own country, but throughout the habitable world; and the philosopher, and the philanthropist, and even the humblest admirer of nature's works may derive intellectual and moral benefit from the study of the life and labours of Cuvier. The Memoirs of Baron Cuvier,' which we have placed at the head of this article, is the production of a lady of superior acquirements. It is written in a spirit of genuine modesty; and, from the personal acquaintance which Mrs Lee enjoyed not only with the illustrious naturalist, but with the different members of his family, she has been able to produce a very pleasing and instructive volume. The powerful Eloge of Baron Pasquier, delivered in his capacity of President of the Chamber of Peers, to which his friend had been recently called, supplies us with a valuable estimate of his powers for legislation and debate. The sketch, by his assistant M. Laurillard, affords a more copious view of his scientific labours; and, in the warm and just panegyric of Decandolle, we recognise the affectionate enthusiasm of a congenial mind. Notwithstanding the value, however, of these various productions, we still require a biography of our author, such as he himself has so often composed, in which a kindred spirit of science and of patriotism shall appreciate his intellectual endowments, and emblazon the glories of a name which France will never cease to honour, nor Europe to admire.* It would be to us a pleasing task, and one neither uninteresting nor uninstructive to our readers, to delineate at full length the peculiar character of a mind like Cuvier's-so richly gifted by nature so nicely adjusted in its faculties-so abundant in its resources-so energetic in its actings-and so lofty in its aspirations for the diffusion and triumph of knowledge; nor would it be less pleasing to contemplate in the same person the calm serenity of the man the simple and modest demeanour of the sage-the unflinching resolution of the patriot-and the benevolence and piety of the Christian. These remarkable features of his disposition have not been inferred from his conversation or his writings, or the partial judgment of his friends. They were fixed and prominent lights in his character, and they shone forth in the daily routine of active duty-in the bitterness of domestic affliction-in the strife and collision of political struggle and amid the convulsions, and humiliations, and triumphs of his *Such an eloge is impatiently expected from the eloquent pen of M. Arago, who, like his deceased colleague, has been forced from the tranquillity of science to defend the liberties and ameliorate the condition of his country... |