conscientious bookseller offered, 30 years afterwards, to make up the deficiency, when his creditor was become director general of public instruction.

Fourcroy studied with so much zeal and ardour that he soon became well acquainted with the subject of medicine. But this was not sufficient. It was necessary to get a doctor's degree; and all the expenses, at that time, amounted to 2501. sterling. An old physician, Dr. Diest, had left funds to the faculty to give a gratuitous degree and license, once every two years, to the poor students who should best deserve them. Fourcroy was the most conspicuous student at that time in Paris. He would therefore have reaped the benefit of this benevolent institution, had it not been for the unlucky situation in which he was placed. There happened to exist a quarrel between the faculty charged with the education of medical men and the granting of degrees, and a society recently established by government for the improvement of the medical art. This dispute had been carried to a great length, and had attracted the attention of all the frivolous and idle inhabitants of Paris. Viq. d'Azyr was secretary to the society, and of course one of its most active champions, and was in consequence particularly obnoxious to the faculty of medicine at Paris. Fourcroy was unluckily the acknowledged protegée of this eminent anatomist: This was sufficient to induce the faculty of medicine to refuse him a gratuitous degree. He would have been excluded in consequence from entering upon the career of a practitioner, had not the society, enraged at this treatment, and influenced by a violent party spirit, formed a subscription, and contributed the necessary expenses.

It was no longer possible to refuse M. de Fourcroy the degree of doctor when he was thus enabled to pay for it. But above the simple degree of doctor there was a higher one, entitled docteur regent, which depended entirely upon the votes of the faculty. It was unanimously refused to M. de Fourcroy. This refusal put it out of his power afterwards to commence teacher in the medical school, and gave the medical faculty the melancholy satisfaction. of not being able to enrol among their number the most celebrated professor in Paris. This violent and unjust conduct of the faculty of medicine made a deep impression in the mind of Fourcroy, and contributed not a little to the subsequent downfall of that powerful body.

Fourcroy being thus entitled to practise in Paris, his success depended entirely upon the reputation which he could contrive to establish. For this purpose he devoted himself to the sciences connected with medicine, as the shortest and most certain road by which he could reach his object. His first writings showed no predilection for any particular branch of science, He wrote

upon chymistry, anatomy, and on natural history. He published an Abridgment of the History of Insects, and a Description of the Bursa Mucosa of the Tendons. This last piece seems to have given him the greatest celebrity: for in 1785 he was admitted, in consequence of it, into the academy of sciences as an anatomist; but the reputation of Bucquet, which at that time was very high, gradually directed his particular attention to chymistry, and he retained this predilection during the rest of his life.

Bucquet was at that time professor of chymistry in the medical school of Paris, and was then greatly celebrated and followed, on account of his eloquence and the elegance of his language. Fourcroy became in the first place his pupil, and soon after his particular friend. One day, when an unforeseen disease prevented him from lecturing as usual, he entreated M. de Fourcroy to supply his place. The young philosopher at first declined, and alleged his total ignorance of the method of addressing a popular audience. But, overcome by the persuasions of Bucquet, he at last consented; and in this his first essay, he spoke two hours without disorder or hesitation, and acquitted himself to the satisfaction of his whole audience. Bucquet soon after substituted him in his place, and it was in his laboratory and in his class-room that he first made himself acquainted with chymistry. He was enabled at the death of Bucquet, in consequence of an advantageous marriage which he had made, to purchase the apparatus and cabinet of his master; and although the faculty of medicine would not allow him to succeed to the chair of Bucquet, they could not prevent him from succeeding to his reputation.

There was a kind of college established in the king's garden, which was at that time under the superintendance of Buffon, and Macquer was the professor of chymistry in this institution. On the death of this chymist, in 1784, Lavoisier stood candidate for the chair. But Buffon received more than a hundred letters in favour of Fourcroy; and the voice of the public was so loud in his favour, that he was appointed to the situation, in spite of the high reputation of his antagonist, and the superior interest that might be supposed to result from his fortune and his situation.

Fourcroy continued professor at the Jardin des Plantes during the remainder of his life, which lasted 25 years; and such was his eloquence, or so well was it fitted to the taste of the French nation, that his celebrity as a lecturer continued always upon the increase: so great also were the crowds, both of men and women, that flocked to hear him, that it was twice necessary to enlarge the size of the lecture-room. I had myself an opportunity of hearing him lecture two or three times, and must acknowledge that I found it difficult to account for the celebrity which he enjoyed.

His style was precisely similar to that of his books, flowing and harmonious, but very diffuse, and destitute of precision; and his manner was that of a petit maitre, mixed with a good deal of pomposity, and an affectation of profundity. There must be something, however, in such a manner, capable of attracting the generality of mankind; for I know a professor who possesses as much of it as is consistent with the British character, and who is far inferior to Fourcroy as a man of science; who, nevertheless, enjoys within his own sphere nearly the same degree of popu larity that Fourcroy did in his.

We must now notice the political career which Fourcroy ran, during the progress of the revolution. In a country where political changes were going on with so much rapidity, and where every description of men were successively had recourse to, it was not possible that a professor so much admired for his eloquence could escape observation. Accordingly, he was elected a member of the national convention, in the autumn of 1793. The national convention, and France herself, were at that time in a state of abject slavery; and so sanguinary was the tyrant who ruled over that unhappy country, that it was almost equally dangerous for the members of the convention to remain silent, or to take an active-part in the business of that assembly. Fourcroy, notwithstanding his reputation for eloquence, and the love of eclat, which appears all along to have been his domineering passion, had good sense enough to resist the temptation, and never opened his mouth in the convention till after the death of Robespierre. This is the more to be wondered at, and is a greater proof of prudence, as it is well known that he took a keen part in favour of the revolution, and that he was a determined enemy to the old order of things, from which he had suffered so severely at his entrance into life.

At this period he had influence enough to save the life of some men of merit: among others, of Darcet, who did not know the obligation he lay under to him till long after. At last his own life was threatened, and his influence of course utterly annihilated.

During this unfortunate and disgraceful period, several of the most eminent literary characters of France were destroyed; among others Lavoisier; and Fourcroy has been accused of contributing to the death of this illustrious philosopher, his former rival, and his master in chymistry. How far such an accusation is deserving of credit, I for my part have no means of determining; but Cuvier, who was upon the spot, and in a situation which enabled him to investigate its truth or falsehood, acquits Fourcroy entirely of the charge, and declares that it was urged against him merely out of envy at his subsequent elevation. "If in the rigor

ous researches which we have made," says Cuvier, in his Eloge of Fourcroy, "we had found the smallest proof of an atrocity so horrible, no human power could have induced us to sully our mouths with his eloge, or to have pronounced it within the walls of this temple, which ought to be no less sacred to honour than to genius.'

Fourcroy began to acquire influence only after the 9th Thermidor, when the nation was wearied with destruction, and when efforts were making to restore those monuments of science, and those public institutions for education, which, during the wantonness and folly of the revolution, had been overturned and destroyed. Fourcroy was particularly active in this renovation, and it was to him chiefly that almost all the schools established in France, for the education of youth, are to be ascribed. The convention had destroyed all the colleges, and universities, and academies, throughout France. The effects of this ridiculous abolition soon became visible. The army stood in need of surgeons and physicians, and there were none educated to supply the vacant places. Three new schools were founded for educating medical men. They were nobly endowed, and still continue connected with the University of Paris. The term schools of medicine was proscribed as too aristocratical. They were distinguished by the ridiculous appellation of schools of health. The polytechnic school was next instituted, as a kind of preparation for the exercise of the military profession, where young men could be instructed in mathematics and natural philosophy, to make them fit for entering the schools of the artillery, of genius, and of the marine. The central schools is another institution for which France is indebted to the efforts of Fourcroy. The idea was good, though it has been very imperfectly put in execution. It was to establish a kind of university in every department, for which the young men were to be prepared by means of a sufficient number of inferior schools scattered through the department. But these inferior schools have never been either properly esta blished, or endowed; and even the central schools themselves have never been supplied with proper masters. Indeed, it would have been impossible to have furnished such a number of masters at once. On that account an institution was established at Paris, under the name of Normal School, for the express purpose of educating a sufficient number of masters to supply the different central schools.

Fourcroy, either as member of the convention, or of the council of ancients, took an active part in all these institutions, both as far as regarded the plan and the establishment. He was equally concerned in the establishment of the Institute, and of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. This last was endowed with the

utmost liberality, and Fourcroy was one of the first professors; as he was also in the school of medicine, and the polytechnic school. He was equally concerned in the restoration of the university, which constitutes the most splendid part of Bonaparte's reign, and the part which will be longest remembered with gratitude and applause.

The violent exertions which M. de Fourcroy made in the numerous situations which he filled, and the prodigious activity which he displayed, gradually undermined his constitution. He himself was sensible of his approaching death, and announced it to his friends as an event which would speedily take place. On the 16th of December, 1809, after signing some despatches, he suddenly cried out, Je suis mort, and dropt lifeless on the ground.

He was twice married: first to Mademoiselle Bettinger, by whom he had two children; a son, an officer in the artillery, who inherits his title; and a daughter, Madame Foucaud. He was married a second time to Madame Belleville, the widow of Vailly, by whom he had no family. He left but little fortune behind him; and two maiden sisters who lived with him, depended, for their support, upon his friend M. Vauquelin.

The character of M. de Fourcroy is sufficiently obvious. It was exactly fitted to the country in which he lived, and the revolutionary government, in the midst of which he was destined to finish his career. Vanity was his ruling passion, and the master spring of all his actions. It was the source of all the happiness, and of all the misery of his life; for every attack, from what quarter soever it proceeded, was felt by him with equal acuteness. The sneer of the most ignorant pretender, or the most obscure paper, affected him just as muce) as if it had proceeded from the most profound philosopher. It is needless to observe, after this, how much he must have suffered from the various parties into which the French chymists divided themselves: all of which were more or less hostile to him, excepting the one which he himself headed. His occupations were too numerous, and his elocution too ready, to put it in his power either to make profound discove ries, or to compose treatises of great depth or originality. The changes which took place in the science of chymistry were brought about by others, who were placed in a different situation, and endowed with different talents: but no man contributed so much as Fourcroy to the popularity of the Lavoisierian opinions, and the rapidity with which they were propagated over France, and most countries in Europe. His eloquence drew crowds to hear him, and persuaded his audience to embrace his opinions.

He must have possessed an uncommon facility in writing, for his literary labours are exceedingly numerous. Besides those essays which have been already noticed, he published five edi