M. Agassiz, the celebrated palæontologist, is known to have relinquished
pursuits from which he might have been in the receipt of a considerable
income, and all for the sake of science. Dr. Buckland knew him, when
engaged in this arduous career, with the revenue of only 100_l._: and of
this he paid fifty pounds to artists for drawings, thirty pounds for
books, and lived himself on the remaining twenty pounds a year! Thus did
he raise himself to an elevated European rank; and, in his abode, _au
troisième_, was the companion and friend of princes, ambassadors, and
men of the highest rank and talent of every country.