The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 2 (of 7)

by Arthur Thomas Malkin

CUVIER.

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.

Engraved by J. Thomson.
CUVIER.
From an original Drawing in the possession of
the Baroness Cuvier, at Paris.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East.

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 of several of the more eminent men of science in Paris, among whom were Lametheric, Olivier, and Lacepède. The impression which Cuvier made upon his correspondents was so great, that when tranquillity was restored, they invited him to come to the capital. He accepted the invitation, and in the spring of 1795 removed to Paris. He was soon afterwards appointed Professor of Natural History in the central school of the Pantheon.

Being very desirous of obtaining some official connexion with the Museum of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, with the view of gaining free access to the valuable collections there deposited, he solicited the aid of his scientific friends, and by their exertions, particularly those of De Jussieu, Geoffroy, and Lacepède, he was nominated assistant to Mertrud, the professor of comparative anatomy, a chair which had been recently instituted. Here he had free scope to indulge his passion for that branch of science, and by his indefatigable exertions he speedily brought together a very copious supply of illustrations for his lectures. He never ceased to make the museum a primary object of his care, and at last formed the most perfect and the most splendid collection of comparative anatomy which exists in the world. The excellence of his lectures, in which the interest of the subject was heightened by his eloquence and easy delivery, attracted a crowd of auditors; and while he thus excited and extended a taste for a department of science previously but little cultivated, those who listened to him spread the fame of the young professor.

At the establishment of the Institute in 1796 he was chosen one of the original members; and the papers which he read before that body, giving an account of his researches and discoveries in comparative anatomy, enriched their memoirs, and procured for him a high and widely extended reputation at an early period of life. In 1800 he was appointed Secretary to the Institute. In the same year Bonaparte was appointed President. Cuvier thus, by virtue of his office, was brought into immediate and frequent communication with that extraordinary man; an event which had a material influence upon his future destiny, and opened to him new and wide fields of usefulness and distinction. Such were the powers of his mind, and so great was the versatility of his genius, that in whatever situation he was placed his superiority was soon acknowledged by his associates.