of this _old tower in the garden_: the nakedness within can
only be compared to the solitude without. Such was the studying-room of
Buffon, where his eye, resting on no object, never interrupted the unity
of his meditations on nature.

In return for my friend's kindness, it has cost me, I think, two hours
in attempting to translate the beautiful picture of this literary
retreat, which Vicq d'Azyr has finished with all the warmth of a votary.
"At Montbard, in the midst of an ornamented garden, is seen an antique
tower; it was there that Buffon wrote the History of Nature, and from
that spot his fame spread through the universe. There he came at
sunrise, and no one, however importunate, was suffered to trouble him.
The calm of the morning hour, the first warbling of the birds, the
varied aspect of the country, all at that moment which touched the
senses, recalled him to his model. Free, independent, he wandered in his
walks; there was he seen with quickened or with slow steps, or standing
wrapped in thought, sometimes with his eyes fixed on the heavens in the
moment of inspiration, as if satisfied with the thought that so
profoundly occupied his soul; sometimes, collected within himself, he
sought what would not always be found; or at the moments of producing,
he wrote, he effaced, and rewrote, to efface once more; thus he
harmonised, in silence, all the parts of his composition, which he
frequently repeated to himself, till, satisfied with his corrections, he
seemed to repay himself for the pains of his beautiful prose, by the
pleasure he found in declaiming it aloud. Thus he engraved it in his
memory, and would recite it to his friends, or induce some to read it to
him. At those moments he was himself a severe judge, and would again
re-compose it, desirous of attaining to that perfection which is denied
to the impatient writer."

A curious circumstance, connected with local associations, occurred to
that extraordinary oriental student, Fourmont. Originally he belonged to
a religious community, and never failed in performing his offices: but
he was expelled by the superior for an irregularity of conduct not
likely to have become contagious through the brotherhood--he frequently
prolonged his studies far into the night, and it was possible that the
house might be burnt by such superfluity of learning. Fourmont retreated
to the college of Montaign, where he occupied the very chambers which
had formerly been those of Erasm