his writings; and not a few of them enjoying the advantage of his personal intercourse and instructions. In any case, he was the individual to whom all eyes were necessarily turned, as most worthy of presiding over such an association; and he deeply felt the honour thus conferred upon him. "There are," he said, in his opening address to the Society, "certain days of happiness which Providence bestows on us, to console us for those others, alas! too numerous, in which we are tried by adversity. Such shall I always reckon that day on which I had the honour to preside over you. Yes, my dear associates, the remembrance of the proof you have given me of your esteem, in raising me to this presidency by your unanimous votes, will follow me to the tomb, and will alleviate the sufferings which are the fruit of my study and labours rather than of my years." He always manifested the deepest interest in the welfare of this Society, and exerted himself to the utmost of his power to further its ends; and nobly did the Society return, as we shall have occasion to show, the obligations it owed him.
His health was never robust, and for many of the last years of his life he suffered much from pain and debility. "His life," says M. Audouin, "had by no means been exempt from disappointment and sorrow; his wife having died several years before him, and being childless, he seemed condemned to a melancholy and insulated old age; but a niece who had been brought up by him, soothed his sufferings even to his last moment. He often told us
