rescue a drowning, or afford hospitality and protection to a beaten enemy. "May humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet," was part of the prayer which he composed on the morning of Trafalgar. There is indeed one stain on his humanity, one stain on his good faith; the deliverance of the Neapolitan revolutionists to the vengeance of a cowardly and cruel court. Of this we have already spoken; and far from excusing, we do not even wish to palliate it. It was the result of his fatal attachment to Lady Hamilton: and it is the duty of the biographer to point out that the one great blot on his domestic, led to the one great blot upon his public character. He has added another to the list of great men, who, proof against other temptations, have yielded to female influence; and we may add (for it is a valuable lesson) that in so doing he not only blemished his fame, but ruined his happiness. Towards his country, however, Nelson was faultless; and its gratitude has been worthily shown by heaping honours on his memory. His brother was made an earl, and an estate was purchased for the family, and a pension granted to support the title. His remains were brought to England, and interred with the utmost pomp of funeral ceremony in the cemetery of St. Paul's. His ship, the Victory, is still preserved at Portsmouth, and will long continue to be a chief object of interest to the visitors of that mighty arsenal. GEORGE LEOPOLD CHRISTIAN FREDERIC DAGOBERT CUVIER was born August 23, 1769, at Montbeliard, a small town in Alsace, which then formed part of the territory of the Duke of Wurtemburg. His father was a retired officer, living upon his pension, who had formerly held a commission in a Swiss regiment in the service of France. He had the inestimable advantage of possessing a very sensible mother who even in infancy attended with sedulous care to the formation of his character, and the development of his mind. He gave early indications that nature had endowed him with her choicest intellectual gifts. A memory of extraordinary strength, joined to industry, and to the power of fixing his attention steadily upon whatever he was engaged in, enabled him to master all the ordinary studies of youth with facility; and by the time he was fourteen years of age he had acquired a fair knowledge of the ancient, and of several modern languages, and had made considerable progress in the mathematics, besides having stored his mind by a wide range of historical reading. He very early gave proofs of a talent for drawing, which in after-life proved of material service in his researches into natural history. When he was twelve years old he read the works of Buffon with avidity, and he no doubt received from the writings of that accomplished and elegant historian of nature an early bias towards the study of zoology. While he was at school he instituted a little academy of sciences among his companions, of which he was elected the president: his sleeping-room was their hall of meeting, and the bottom of his bed the president's chair. They read extracts from books of history, travels, and natural philosophy, which they discussed; and the debate was usually followed by an opinion on the merits of the question, pronounced from the chair. In 1783 the reigning Duke of Wurtemburg visited Montbeliard; and became acquainted with the unusual attainments of young Cuvier, who had then reached the fourteenth year of his age. Struck by the early promise of future eminence, he offered to take him under his own protection. The proposal was readily accepted, and the future philosopher went to Stutgard to prosecute his studies in the university of that place. He continued there four years, and did not fail to turn to good account the excellent opportunities which were afforded to him, of laying the foundation of that extensive acquaintance with every great department of human knowledge, for which he was in after-life so eminently distinguished. The universality of his genius was as remarkable as the depth and accuracy of his learning in that particular field of science, with which his name is more especially associated. He not only gained the highest academical prizes, but was decorated by the Duke with an order; a distinction which was only conferred upon five or six out of the four hundred students at the university. He had now arrived at an age when it was necessary for him to choose a profession, and his inclination led him to seek employment in one of the public offices in the country of his patron. This he would probably have obtained; but, happily for science, the circumstances of his parents made it impossible for him to linger in expectation, and he changed his views. In July, 1788, being then in his nineteenth year, he accepted the office of tutor in a Protestant family in Normandy, having been himself brought up in that faith. The family lived in a very retired situation near the sea; and Cuvier was not so constantly engaged with his pupils as to prevent him from cultivating those branches of science, for which he had imbibed a decided taste while listening to the lectures of Abel, the professor of natural history at Stutgard. He devoted himself especially to the study of the Mollusca, for which his vicinity to the sea afforded him good opportunities; and continued his researches uninterruptedly for six years in this retirement. The reign of terror at Paris, which spared neither virtue nor talent, drove M. Tessier, a member of the Academy of Sciences, to seek refuge in Normandy. He became acquainted with the young naturalist, and soon learned to appreciate his talents; and he introduced him to the correspondence |