Invited to Paris to fill the place of Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes, his lectures speedily drew crowds around him, attracted by his popular eloquence and lucid arrangement. His next work, Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee, 1805, was rewarded by the Institute with the decennial prize for the work which had contributed the most to our knowledge of the Natural Sciences during that period. At the same period he published a series of Memoirs on the Anatomy of the Mollusca, and devoted his attention to a detailed examination of the fossil remains of the bones of mammiferous animals; he particularly examined the numerous fossils in the environs of Paris, assisted in the geological part of his task by his friend M. A. Brogniart. The sagacity and accuracy which M. Cuvier displayed in the examination of fossil bones, raised this branch of inquiry to the dignity of a perfectly new science, which has thrown a powerful light on geology, and directed it into a more philosophical route. A number of works and of elaborate memoirs published since by various naturalists, have shown the prodigious influence which the labours of Cuvier have exercised on the study of geology, of the animal kingdom, and even of fossil botany. M. Cuvier amused himself during these laborious works by particular researches which would alone have been sufficient to have distinguished any other man, such as his five Memoirs on the Voice of Birds, on Crocodiles, and on numerous subjects of zoology; such also as his descriptions of the living animals in the menagerie, &c. In all his works, even to the minutest details, we discover the same luminous, clear, and methodical mind, and the sagacity which characterized him. Feeling the want of a work which should present a general view of his ideas on zoological classification, he published in 1817 his work entitled Le Regne Animal distribue d'après son Organisation, in 4 vols, 8vo. which speedily became the text-book of all zoological students. When employed on this work he felt how far in arrear of the other branches of zoology was that which respects the class of fish, and saw how much difficulty had accumulated in it, as well from our ignorance of the anatomy of these animals, and the impossibility of determining with precision the laws of their comparative organization, as from the want of large collections, and perhaps also from the too artificial spirit which had hitherto prevailed in ichthyology. He employed his influence to form a collection in the Paris Museum of specimens of fish from all parts of the world, and was so successful in his endeavours that the number of specimens which at first scarcely amounted to 1,000, in a few years amounted to 6,000. Of these he dissected a large portion with a care hitherto unknown, having the advantage of an able associate in the study of the details in M. Valenciennes; he was thus enabled in a period of time that may be called short, looking to the extent of the results, to collect the materials of his great Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, of which eight volumes have appeared, with their appropriate plates, and for the continuation of which we have to look to his laborious assistant. The recent embarrassment among the Paris publishers having occasioned a stoppage in the progress of this work, M. Cuvier availed himself of this (as the part prepared for the press was already in advance of the printer) to make preparations for republishing his Lecons d'Anotomie Comparee, of which a second edition had been long anxiously called for. This design, however, he was not permitted to complete; but it is to be hoped that we shall not be long deprived of the edition he had contemplated, and that it will be accompanied with those beautiful and accurate plates on which he had bestowed so much pains, and in the execution of which he himself excelled; for he was a skilful draftsman, and seized external forms with rapidity and accuracy, and possessed the art of representing in his drawings the forms of organic tissues in a style peculiar to himself. His last course of lectures, on the History of the Natural Sciences, and on the Philosophy of Natural History, delivered at the College of France, is now publishing in livraisons, and will extend to three or four vols, 8vo. This work, however, we believe, has been published without his consent or revision. His memory was prodigious, and he scarcely knew what it was to forget anything. Although his great powers were more particularly devoted to natural history, no part of science was a stranger to him, and his taste for literature and works of imagination was particularly refined and elegant. In his Eloges of illustrious men, delivered in his capacity of perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, he always displays the utmost impartiality and love of truth; he never debased the dignity of science by any love of intrigue, and displayed the utmost disinterestedness in his efforts to promote science. The qualities of his heart were not less estimable than those of his head, and he possessed the happy art of inspiring his friends with an unalterable attachment. His conversation was varied and animated, adapted by turns to every subject, and he may truly be said to have been the grace and ornament of society. We must not forget the great services he rendered to public education as head of the University; his Report on the State of Primary Education in Holland is a lasting monument of his solicitude for the education of the people, and all those who have observed his conduct with regard to the higher branches of education, know how constantly his influence was directed to favour their progress and to remove obstacles. In other departments of the civil service into which he was successively called, as Master of Requests, Counsellor of State, President of the Section of the Interior, Director of Protestant Worship, (for he was an enlightened and liberal Protestant, and watched over the interests of his co-religionists with constant solicitude,) and at last as a Peer of France—in all these he displayed the same superiority of talent. The office of Censor of the Press, which was offered to him, he, to his eternal honour, refused. Such was the man whose loss the world has now to deplore: but the mind that traced her age and history—in the wrecks of ages dug from her bosom—will live for ever in his works to enlighten and instruct mankind.—Foreign Quarterly Review.
Cuvier is said to have died of a paralytic affection of the oesophagus. His body was examined by several eminent pathologists: his brain is stated to have presented a mass of extraordinary volume, weighing three pounds thirteen and a half ounces; a fact which will be treasured up by contemporary phrenologists as evidence of Cuvier's great intellectual capabilities.
[Cuvier was Professor of Geology in the College of France. The chair, vacant by his death, has just been filled by the appointment of M. Elie Beaumont, celebrated for his investigation of mountain formations.]
New Books
LEGENDS OF THE RHINE.
[These are three novel-sized volumes from the prolific pen of Mr. Grattan, whose Highways and Byeways have probably started off hundreds of scribbling tourists to the Continent, much to the annoyance of the keepers of old castles and other necromantic haunts. These Legends, however, have little to do with the Rhine, which is perhaps fortunate for their success, as most of the traditionary stories of the romantic river have been dished up in as many forms and fashions as French cooks are accustomed to serve up eggs. A few of our Correspondents have tried their taste, but we hope not the reader's patience, in Rhin-onomy; and Mr. Planché, moreover, has wandered and sailed up and down the district, picking to new van its mystic stories in every form common to our literature. We have enjoyed every inch of the stream and its banks, coloured after nature, in a panorama on paper, to put into your pocket or portmanteau; and just now Views on the Rhine are publishing in sixpenny portions, and becoming as little rare as Views on the Thames; till we may as well say thick as leaves on the Rhine, as in Vallainbrosa.
Mr. Grattan's Legends are stated to be freely adapted from the literature of the countries where the scenes are laid. They consist of some ten or dozen stories of untiring length but too much for entire extract. For the sake of some delightfully graphic writing we are induced to quote a portion of one of the tales—The Curse of the Black Lady, a legend of the twelfth century. The scene lies in the Low Countries, and introduces an admirably-drawn portrait of a knight of the period.]
The Castle of the Countess of Hainault at Mons was a complete specimen of the splendid architecture of the twelfth century, or that which is now called Gothic; pointed windows abounding in coloured glass, unpolished marble, heavy wooden doors, thickly studded with iron nails, leading into immense corridors, interminable passages, and branching staircases.
It was early in a morning of the month of February, that the horn of a knight was heard beyond the castle wall, and immediately replied to by the warder; and when the draw-bridge was slowly replaced and the portcullis heavily withdrawn, a knight followed by a squire, whose surcoat bore the Flander's lion, entered. The cap of the knight was of black velvet, and slight bars of steel, bent into the form of a semicircle, crossed each other at the top of his head and served at once for defence and for ornament. His boots of thick leather reaching almost to the knees bespoke him an inhabitant of a maritime country, having spurs formed of a single point of iron, long and obtuse, and these being gilt would have announced the wearer's rank in chivalry, even if his whole equipment and bearing had not proclaimed his right to the deference with which he was received. As he dismounted from his horse, he threw off the large mantle, not unlike the military cloaks of our days, and discovered the knightly armour, which showed to peculiar advantage his powerful limbs. A straight black tunic without sleeves descended to his knees. It was fastened by a silver girdle, from which depended on one side a strong sword, and on the other a dagger, the richly wrought handle of which seemed to declare it of Turkish make. His arms and hands were covered with a steel tissue, sitting close and so flexible that it yielded lightly to every motion. The squire who followed him was old, and a certain familiarity was mingled with the respect of his manner, and seemed to declare that he had been long accustomed to his master. In truth he had served the father of our knight, and the latter had grown up beneath his attendance, which had not unfrequently become his protection. His armour, far from adorning his person, scarcely left a human figure visible beneath its heavy plates of iron, fastened by nails whose monstrous heads seemed cast in the same mould with those which strengthened the heavy oak doors of the palace. His helmet seemed the section of a water-pipe of cast iron. Visor it had none; but in its place was a plate or bar of iron descending from the forehead to the chin, almost touching the nose and mouth, and he had a group of arms suspended from his saddle. It was Sir Guy de Dampierre and his squire.
The seneschal conducted them with much ceremony to the knight's apartments in the castle, where a small table placed by the side of an enormous log-fire in the middle of the room, and plentifully furnished with cold salted and dried meats, together with the thin wines of France, and the more potent juice of the German grape, soon made him forget the cold and thirst he had endured in the forest. The beer he quaffed with peculiar pleasure, as it invitingly foamed in a silver tankard, which had been thickly embossed by the abbot of Wansfort, and presented by him to the Emperor Baldwin previous to his embarkation for the Holy Land.