We have had countless instances of "the ruling passion strong in death;"
but perhaps we can adduce nothing more illustrative of that feeling than
the following fact, which may vie with the sublimity of Rousseau's
death, when he desired to look on the sun ere his eyes were closed in
the rayless tomb:--M. Daubenton, the scientific colleague of Buffon, and
the anatomical illustrator of his "Histoire Naturelle," on being chosen
a member of the Conservative Senate, was seized with apoplexy the first
time he assisted at the sessions of that body, and fell senseless into
the arms of his astonished colleagues. The most prompt assistance could
only restore him to feeling for a few moments, during which he showed
himself, what he had always been--a tranquil observer of nature. _He
felt with his fingers, which still retained sensation, the various parts
of his body, and pointed out to the assistants the progress of the
disease!_ He died on the 31st of December, 1799. The _Edinburgh
Philosophical Journal_ states, "it may be said of him, that he attained
happiness the most perfect, and the least mixed, that any man could hope
to attain. His life was marked by an undeviating pursuit of science; and
to him was Buffon indebted for instruction and example. Naturally of a
mild and conciliatory disposition, and gifted with cool and
dispassionate consideration, he was just such a preceptor as was
calculated to curb the imagination of Buffon, whose fiery and ardent
genius was apt to substitute theory for proof, and fancy for fact; and
often did the 'biting smile' of M. Daubenton check the ardency of
Buffon, and his well-weighed words arrest him in his headlong progress."
What more noble picture of scientific devotion can we imagine than the
feeble and aged Daubenton, shut up for whole days in his cabinet of
natural history, ardently exerting himself in the complex and weary task
of arranging the objects according to their several relations? But
Buffon, with the wayward negligence which clings to genius, did wrong to
his friend in publishing an edition of his "Histoire Naturelle" without
the dissections. Yet such a step, discountenanced by all the liberal
body of science, was forgiven by the philosophic and gentle Daubenton;
and Buffon made atonement for his aberration, by re-uniting himself to
the companion of his childhood, the participator in his studies, and the
preceptor of his genius.