(Lazarus), was born at Scandiano, in the dutchy of Modena, on the 10th of January 1729. He was son of Jean Nicholas Spallanzani, an excellent juristconsult, and of Lucia Zogliani. He commenced his studies in his own country, and at the age of fifteen years went to Reggio de Modena in order to continue them. The Jesuits, who instructed him in the belles lettres, and the Dominicans, who heard of his progress, were each desirous of attaching him to them; but his passion for extending his knowledge led him to Bologna, where his relation Laura Baffi, a woman justly celebrated for her genius, her eloquence, and her skill in natural philosophy and the mathematics, was one of the most illustrious professors of the Institute of Italy. Under the direction of this enlightened guide, he learned to prefer the study of Nature to that of her commentators, and to judge of the value of the commentary by its resemblance to the original. He instantly availed himself of the wisdom of that lady's counsels, and was not long before he experienced the happy effects of it. How agreeable it is to see him in 1765 painting his gratitude for his instructor, to whom he dedicated a Latin dissertation at that time, in which he mentions the applause that Laura Baffi received at Modena, when she entered the auditory of her pupil, then become professor. The taste of Spallanzani for philosophy was not exclusive; he already thought, like all great men, that the study of antiquity and the belles-lettres was requisite to give to ideas that clearness, to expressions that accuracy, and to reasonings that connection, without which the finest thoughts become barren. He studied his own language with care, and perfected himself in the Latin tongue; but above all, he attached himself to the Greek and the French. Homer, Demosthenes, St Basil, were his favourite authors. Spallanzani applied himself to jurisprudence at the instance of a father whom he tenderly loved: he was upon the point of receiving the degree of doctor of civil law, when Anthony Valliferi, professor of natural history at Padua, persuaded him to renounce this vocation, by promising to obtain the consent of his father, who was sensibly touched by his son's devotion to his will, and who thereby left him at liberty to follow his own inclinations. From that moment he gave himself up with more ardour than ever to the study of mathematics, continuing that also of the living and dead languages.

Spallanzani was presently known all over Italy, and his own country was the first to do homage to his talents. The university of Reggio, in 1754, chose him to be professor in logic, metaphysics, and Greek. He taught there for ten years; and during that period consecrated all the time he could spare from his lessons to the observation of Nature. Now and then an accidental discovery would increase his passion for natural history, which always augmented by new successes. His observations upon the animalcula of infusions fixed the attention of Haller and of Bonnet; the latter of whom assisted him in his glorious career, and thenceforth distinguished him as one of the learned interpreters of Nature.

In 1760 Spallanzani was called to the university of Modena; and although his interest would have made him accept the advantageous offers of the university of Coimbra, of Parma, and of Cefalu; yet his patriotism and his attachment to his family confused his services to his own country. The same considerations engaged him to refuse the propositions made him by the academy of Petersburg some years after. He remained at Modena till the year 1768, and he saw raised by his care a generation of men constituting at this time the glory of Italy. Among them may be counted Venturi, professor of natural philosophy at Modena; Belloni, bishop of Carpi; Lucchesini, ambassador of the late king of Prussia; and the poet Angelo Mazzo of Parma.

During his residence at Modena, Spallanzani published, in 1765, Saggio di Osservazioni Microscopiche concernente il Sistema di Nuclei e Buffon. He therein establishes the animality of what had been called, but not generally affected to as, microscopic animalcula, by the most ingenious, and at the same time solid, experiments. He sent this work to Bonnet, who formed his opinion of the author accordingly, and who lived to see the accomplishment of the prophecy he drew from it. From that moment the most intimate acquaintance was formed between them, and it lasted during their lives, of which it constituted the chief happiness. In the same year Spallanzani published a dissertation truly original: De Lapidibus ab Aqua reflextis. In that work he proves, by satisfactory experiments, contrary to the commonly received opinion, that the ducks and drakes (as they are called) are not produced by the elasticity of the water, but by the natural effect of the change of direction which the stone experiences in its movement, after the water has been struck by it, and that it has been carried over the bend or hollow of the cup formed by the concurrence.

In 1768 he prepared the philosophera for the surprising discoveries he was about to offer them throughout his life, in publishing his Prodromo di un Opera da Imprimere sopra le Riproduzioni Animali. He therein lays down the plan of a work which he was anxious to get up on this important subject; but this simple prospectus contains more real knowledge than all the books which had appeared, because it taught the method that ought to be followed in this dark research, and contained many unexpected facts; such as the pre-existence of tadpoles at the fecundation, in many species of toads and frogs; the reproduction of the head cut off from snails, which he had already communicated to Bonnet in 1766, and which was disputed for some time, in spite of the repeated confirmation of this phenomenon by Herissant and Lavoisier. He demonstrated it again afterwards in the Memorie della Societa Italiana; as also the renewal of the tail, the limbs, and even the jaws, taken from the aquatic salamander. These facts continue to astonish even at this day, when they are thought of, notwithstanding every one has had the opportunity of familiarising himself with them; and we hardly know which we ought most to admire, the expertise of Spallanzani in affording such decisive proofs, or his boldness in searching after them, and seizing them. We have to regret, that the project of his great undertaking is not realized; but various circumstances prevented him from giving way to the solicitations of his friends for its accomplishment. Perhaps he despaired of throwing upon every part of it all the light which at first he thought he might be able; and found it prudent to mature his ideas by new meditations: this may probably have been as powerful a cause as that other calls and occupations, perpetually accumulating, should not have allowed him to pursue it as he had intended. He has always laid Nature open to full view; and the thinnest veil darkened her till he succeeded in removing it altogether.

The physiology of Haller that Spallanzani studied; fixed his attention upon the circulation of the blood, in which he discovered several remarkable phenomena. He published, in 1768, a small tract: Dell'Asione del Cuore e dei Vasi Sanguei nuovi Osservazioni; and he reprinted it in 1773, with three new dissertations, De' Fenomeni della Circolazione osservata nel Giro universale de' Vasi; De' Fenomeni della Circolazione Linguale; De' Moti del Sangue, indipendente dal Movimento del Cuore e del Pulsare delle Arterie. This work, but little known, contains a series of observations and experiments, of the most ingenious and delicate nature, upon a subject of which the surface only is known. It merits the attention of those who are interested in the progress of physiology.

When the university of Padua was re-established upon a larger scale, the Empress Maria Theresa directed the Count de Firmian to invite him to fill a chair, as professor of natural history; his great reputation rendered him eligible for this distinction, solicited by many celebrated men, and he merited it by his success, and by the crowd of students who thronged to his lectures. Only great men make excellent matters, because their ideas are the most perspicuous, the most extensive, and best connected.

Spallanzani united a vast extent of knowledge to a fine genius; a method simple, but rigorous in its nature; and he connected what he knew to principles firmly established. His ardent love of truth made him difficult, with the utmost care, the theories which prevailed; to sound their solidity, and discover their weak sides. The great art which he had acquired, of interpreting Nature by herself, diffused such a light over his lectures, as made everything perspicuous that was capable of affording instruction. An eloquence at once plain and lively animated his discourse; the purity and elegance of his style charmed all who heard it: in short, it was known that he always occupied himself about the means of rendering his lessons useful, which he prepared a year beforehand. They became always new and engaging, by his new observations, and by the enlarged views that his meditations presented to him. The learned persons who attended his lectures were pleased to become his scholars, in order to know better what they already knew, and to learn that which otherwise they would perhaps never have known.

In arriving at the university, Spallanzani took the Contemplation de la Nature de Bonnet for the text of his lessons; he filled up the vacancies in it, he unfolded the ideas, and confirmed the theories by his experiments. He believed, with reason, that the book which inspired him with the love of natural history by reading it, was the most proper to give birth to it in the minds of his disciples.

He translated it into Italian, and enriched it with notes; he added a preface to it, wherein he pointed out the subjects of the vegetable and animal economy, which in an especial manner deserved the attention of his pupils; and sometimes pointing out to them the means of succeeding in their researches. It was thus he at first devoted himself to the pleasing employment of instructing his countrymen, and that he became the model of those who were desirous of instructing usefully. He published the first volume of his translation in 1769, and the second in 1770.

The connection of Spallanzani with Bonnet had an influence upon his genius, which bent to the feverish method of the philosopher of Geneva. He prided himself in being his pupil, and he unceasingly meditated upon his admirable writings; and thus it was that he became desirous of seeking in Nature for the proofs of Bonnet's opinion upon the generation of organized bodies, and that this charming subject fixed his attention for a long time.

He published, in 1776, the two first volumes of his Opuscoli di Fisica Animale e Vegetabile; they are the explanation of a part of the microscopic observations which had already appeared.

If the art to observe be the most difficult, it is nevertheless the most necessary of all the arts; but it supposes every quality, every talent; and further, though each believes himself more or less consummate therein, yet it is obvious, that only great men have exercised it in a distinguished manner. Genius alone fixes the objects worthy of regard; that alone directs the senses to the obscurities which it is necessary to dissipate; it watches over them to prevent error; it animates them to follow by the scent, as it were, that which they have but a distant view of; it takes off the veil which covers what we are looking after; it supports the patience which waits the moment for gratifying the sight in the midst of obstacles multiplying, one upon another; in short, it is genius that concentrates the attention upon an object, which communicates that energy to him for imagining, that sagacity for discovering, that promptness for perceiving, without which we see only one side of truth, when we do not happen to let it escape altogether. But this is not all; for after Nature has been read with precision, it is necessary to interpret her with fidelity; to analyze by the thought the phenomena anatomized by the senses; to consider of the species by observing the individual, and so anticipate the general propositions by considering the unconnected facts. Here

prudence and circumspection will not always secure us against error, if an ardent love for the truth does not allay observations and their consequences in its crucible, and thereby reduce everything to science which is not truth.

Such was Spallanzani in all his researches; such we see him in all his writings. Occupied by the great phenomenon of generation, he examined the opinion of Needham to demonstrate its want of foundation. The latter, not satisfied with the microscopic observations of Spallanzani, which weakened the imagined vegetative force to put the matter in motion, challenged the professor of Reggio to a repertory of what he had written; but he proved to the other, that we in common practice always see that which has been well observed, but that we never again see that which we have been contented with imagining we saw.

Spallanzani has received much praise for the politeness with which he carried on this controversy, and for the severe logic with which he demonstrates to Needham the causes of his error; and proves, that the animalcule of infusions are produced by germs; that there are some of them which defy, like certain eggs and seeds, the most excessive cold, as well as the heat of boiling water. On this occasion, he treats on the influence of cold upon animals, and proves that the lethargic numbness of some, during winter, does not depend upon the impression the blood may receive from it; since a frog, deprived of his blood, becomes lethargic when he is reduced to the same cold state by an immersion in ice, and swims as before when restored to warmth. In the same manner he shows that odours, various liquors, the vacuum, act upon animalcules as upon other animals; that they are oviparous, viviparous, and hermaphrodite. Thus, in running over these distant regions of Nature with this illustrious traveller, we are always meeting with new facts, profound remarks, precious details, and some curious anecdotes; in short, an universal history of those beings which are the most numerous of the globe, although their existence is scarcely suspected, and whose organization is in many respects different from that of known animals.

The second volume of this work is a new voyage into the most unknown parts; a sublime pencil had already painted it, but the picture was not done after Nature. Spallanzani here gives a history of the spermatic animalcule, which the eloquent historian above alluded to always confounds with the animalcule of infusions. We cannot but admire the modest diffidence of this new demonstrator, struggling against his own opinion and the authority of Buffon; and he appears to admit, with repugnance, the results of his multiplied, and in a thousand ways varied, observations, which expose the feebleness of the system of organic molecules.

Spallanzani afterwards describes the volvox and the slow-moving animalcule (rotiferae and tardigradae), those colostrum of the microscopic world, soingular by their figure and organization, but more singular still by their faculty of returning life, after a total suspension of all the apparent acts of it during many years.

We will not here speak of the experiments of Spallanzani on the death of animals in clove vessels, because he took up the subject again, and enlarged and exemplified it by the new lights of chemistry; but this collection lection he concludes with another on the history of vegetable mould growing on the surface of liquors and moist substances, the seeds of which he shows to float in the air; and he remarks, that these microscopic champignons or mushrooms distinguish themselves from other plants by their tendency to grow in all directions, without conforming to the almost universal law of perpendicularity of stalk to the ground.

Spallanzani was placed at the head of the university's cabinet of natural history, but he was little more than titular depositary of a treasure which no longer existed. He laid the foundations, however, for its renewal, and by his care it is become one of the most precious and useful. He enriched it through his repeated travels by land and sea, in Europe, in Asia, across the Apennines, the Alps, the Karpats, at the bottom of mines, on the top of volcanoes, at the mouth of craters: supported by his ardent passion in the midst of perils, he preferred the "sang-froid" of the philosopher to contemplate these wonders, and the piercing eye of an observer to study them. It is thus that he always distinguished the proper objects for improving science by favouring instruction; it is thus that he filled this depositary with treasures, that all the gold in the world could not have obtained, because gold never supplies the genius and the discernment of the enlightened naturalist.

In 1779 Spallanzani ran over Switzerland and the Grisons; he then went to Geneva, where he spent a month with his friends, who admired him the more in his conversations after having admired him in his writings. He then returned to Pavia, and published, in 1780, two new volumes of his "Differenzioni di Fisica Animale e Vegetabile." He therein reveals the secrets of the interpretation of two very obscure phenomena, concerning the vegetable and animal economy.

Some experiments made by Spallanzani upon digestion, for his fellows, engaged him to study this dark operation; he repeated Reaumur's experiments upon the gallinaceous birds; and he observed that the trituration, which is in this case an aid to digestion, could not, however, be a very powerful means. He saw that the gizzard of those birds which pulverize the stones of fruit to pieces, as done with needles or other sharp-pointed instruments, did not digest the powder formed; that it was necessary it should undergo a new operation in the stomach, before it could become fit chyle for affording the elements of the blood and other humours. He established the point, that the digestion was performed in the stomach of numerous animals by the powerful action of a juice which dissolves the aliment; and to render his demonstration the more convincing, he had the courage to make several experiments on himself which might have proved fatal, and had the addicts to complete his proofs by artificial digestions, made in glasses upon the table, by mixing the chewed aliments with the gastric juice of animals, which he knew how to extract from their stomachs. But this book, so original by the multitude of experiments and curious observations which it contains, is still more worthy of attention by the philosophic spirit which detected it.

This subject is one of the most difficult in physiology; the observer is always compelled to act and to look with darkness around him; he is obliged to manage the animal with care, to avoid the derangement of his operations; and when he has laboriously completed his experiments, it is necessary that he should well distinguish the consequences, sometimes erroneous, which may be drawn from those of observation, which never deceive when they are immediate. Spallanzani, in this work, is truly a fine spectacle; scrupulously analyzing the facts in order to discover their causes with certainty; inventing happy resources for surmounting the obstacles which renew themselves; comparing Nature with his experiments, to judge of them; catching hold in his observations of every thing that is essential in them; measuring their solidity by the augmentation or diminution of supposed causes; drawing the best-founded conclusions, and rejecting the most plausible hypotheses; modestly exposing the errors of those who have gone before him, and employing analogy with that wise circumference which inspires confidence in an instrument at once so dangerous and so useful. But let it be known, Spallanzani had a capacity in particular for discovering the truth, while the greater part of observers scarcely ever attain it; and then, after having described around them a circuitous trace, he runs upon it by a straight line, and possesses himself of it so as it cannot escape him.

This work put John Hunter out of humour; and he published, in 1785, "Some Observations upon Digestion," wherein he threw out some bitter sarcasms against Spallanzani; who took ample revenge by publishing this work in Italian, and addressing it to Cullen, in 1788, "Una Lettera Apologetica in Risposta alle Offensioni del Signor Giovanni Hunter." He exposes, with moderation, but with an irresistible logic, the oversights of the English physiologist, and points out his errors in a manner which left him no hope of a reply.

The second volume treats of the generation of animals and plants. Spallanzani proves, by experiments as satisfactory as they are surprising, the pre-existence of germs to fecundation; he shows the existence of tadpoles in the females of five different species of frogs, in toads, and in salamanders, before their fecundation; he recounts the success of some artificial fecundations upon the tadpoles of those five species, and even upon a quadruped. He in the same manner shows the seed in the flowers, before the emission of their farina; and by a subtle anatomy of which one can hardly form an idea, he exhibits to the eye in the flower of the "fornixium junceum," the filigree, its seeds, with their lobes, and the embryo plant; he pursues them in their expansion before and after fecundation, and leaves not a doubt but that the seeds and the pericarpia existed long before the blooming of the buds, and consequently a long time before they could have been fecundated. He has repeated these observations upon various species of plants with the same results; in short, he has raised the individuals of plants with female flowers which have borne fecundated seeds, although they were out of the reach even of suspicion of a communication with the farina of the male flowers. Such is the series of surprising phenomena Spallanzani adds to the history of Nature.

According to custom, he availed himself of the academical vacation of 1784, to make a journey, the object of which was to add to the cabinet of Pavia. He set out in the month of July for Marseille, where he commenced a new history of the sea, which had presented him with a crowd of novel and curious facts up- on numerous genera of the inhabitants of the ocean. He went likewise to Finale, to Genoa, to Maffia, and to Carrara, to observe the quarries of marble so famous with the statuaries; he returned to Spezzia, and thence brought to Pavia an immense harvest of fishes, crustaceous and terebraceous, which he deposited in that cabinet of which his voyages and travels had rendered him so worthy to be the guardian. He visited, in the same view, and with the same success, the coasts of Idria in 1782; the Apennine Mountains in 1783, where he noticed the terrible hurricanes, and the surging vapours which rendered that year so famous in meteorology. The cabinet of Pavia thus every year saw its riches increase; and in the same proportion it became the object of strangers' admiration; but every one admired still more the immense labour of Spallanzani, who had collected every part of it.

The Emperor Joseph knew this when he came into Lombardy; he desired to have a conversation with Spallanzani; and his majesty expressed his approbation by presenting him with his medal in gold.

The university of Padua offered to Spallanzani, in 1785, the chair of natural history, which the death of Anthony Valliferi had left vacant, promising him more considerable advantages than those which he enjoyed at Pavia; but the archduke doubled his pension, and allowed him to accompany to Constantinople the Chevalier Zuliani, who had just been nominated ambassador from the republic of Venice.

He left this city the 21st of August; and during his voyage made several observations upon the marine productions he met with in those climates, as well as upon the meteorological events of every day, among which he had the advantage of beholding a species of water-spout. He touched at several islands in the Archipelago, which he examined, and went ashore at Troy to visit the places sung by the poet whom he preferred to all others; and in treading upon that ground so anciently famous, he made some geological observations truly original. One may judge before hand of the interest we shall feel in reading the Voyage of Spallanzani, by some memoirs which have appeared in the Memorie della Societa Italiana upon the water-spouts at sea, the stroke of the torpedo, divers marine productions, and the island of Cythera, where he discovered a mountain composed of various species of fossils. Spallanzani arrived at Constantinople the 11th of October, and remained there eleven months; he must have been greatly out of his element in that country of ignorance and superstition, if he had not had Nature to study, and Zuliani to hear him. The physical and moral phenomena of this country, quite new to him, fixed his attention; he strayed over the borders of the two seas, and climbed up the neighbouring hills; he visited the island of Chalki, where he made known to the Turks a mine of copper, the existence of which they never so much as suspected. He went to the Principi island, a few miles distant from Constantinople, where he discovered an iron mine equally unthought of by the Turks. He returned to Europe loaded with spoils from the East, composed of the creatures of the three kingdoms, peculiar to those regions; after having been useful to the Orientals, who were incapable of appreciating his merit, or rather of imagining he could have any, he set out on his return for Italy the 16th of August, 1786.

A voyage by sea was in every respect the most safe and the most commodious; but Spallanzani considered the dangers and the inconveniences of the road as nothing when employed in any beneficial pursuit; he braved all the perils of those desert regions, where there is no police, no security. When he arrived at Bucharest, he was retained there during nine days by the celebrated and unhappy Mauroceci, hospodar of Wallachia. This prince, the friend of science, received him with distinction, presented him with many of the rarities of his country, furnished him with horses for travelling, and also gave him an escort of thirty troopers throughout the whole extent of his dominions. Spallanzani passed by Hermannstadt in Transylvania, and arrived at Vienna the 7th of December, after having viewed the numerous mines of Transylvania, of Hungary, and of Germany, which lay in the neighbourhood of his route. Spallanzani remained five days in this capital of Austria; he had two very long audiences with the Emperor Joseph II.; was well received by the highest nobility in that metropolis, and visited by the men of letters. At length arrived at Pavia; the students came to meet him out of the gates of the city, and accompanied him home, manifesting their joy all the way by repeated shouts. Their great desire to hear him, drew him almost immediately to the auditory, where they forced him to ascend the chair from which he had been accustomed to deliver his lectures to them. Spallanzani, affected by this scene, testified with eloquence his gratitude and attachment;—friendly wishes, cries of joy, clapping of hands, recommenced with more force, and he was obliged to request them to desist, and allow him to take in his house that repose which was more necessary than ever. He had in the course of this year above 300 students.

Spallanzani had acquired glory enough to merit the attacks of envy; but his discoveries were too new, too original, too solid to be disputed; envy itself was therefore forced to admire him; but that unworthy passion, being tired out by the increasing reputation of that great man, watched the moment to prove that it had not forgotten him. Envy and malignity then called in question his uprightness in the administration of the cabinet of Pavia; the whole of which was the fruit of his own labours; but the darts aimed at his honour only made it shine with new lustre. The integrity of Spallanzani appeared even more pure after the juridical examination of the tribunals. But let us stop here; Spallanzani had the fortitude to forget this event which had torn his heart to pieces; the greater part of his enemies acknowledged their mistake, abjured their hatred, and did not despair of regaining his friendship.

The cabinet of Pavia was always the object of Spallanzani's thoughts; amidst the numerous rarities which he had placed there, he only saw those that were wanting. Struck with its deficiency in volcanic matters, which had neither series nor order, and consequently excited little interest, being a mute article with respect to instruction (although Italy was the theatre where the fires of volcanoes had for so many ages exercised their devastating powers), he took the resolution, with which his talents, his courage, and his zeal, inspired him him. He was desirous to instruct his pupils, his nation, himself, concerning the phenomena so striking, and yet so little known, and to collect the documents of their history in the places where they have always been the terror of those who surrounded them, and where they have been uselessly the subject of the observations of the philosopher. He therefore prepared himself for this great enterprise by deep studies. He set out for Naples, in the summer of 1788, and ascended Mount Vesuvius; he looked attentively into its crater, examined and made notes in his books, and embarked for the Lipari islands. He dissected, as it were, the uninhabited volcanoes, with the exactness of a naturalist anatomizing a butterfly, and the intrepidity of a warrior defying the most imminent dangers. It was then that he had the boldness to walk over that fulminous crust, cleft with chinks, trembling, smoking, burning, and sometimes treacherously covering the hearth of the volcano. He passed into Sicily, where he climbed up to Etna, and coaled its immense crater. His curiosity not being exhausted, he would collect around him, and have in his mind, all the singular phenomena that Sicily contained; he examined the stones and the mountains, and discovered many new marine animals; he approached Scylla and Charybdis, and in a boat crossed the frothy billows of those deadly rocks, celebrated for so many shipwrecks, and so often sung by the poets; but in the very midst of their frightful waves, he discovered the cause of their fury (See Scylla, Suppl.). It was thus that, at the age of 60, he picked up those numberless anecdotes which fill his voyages in the two Sicilies; and that he compared the description which Homer, Findar, Virgil, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo, have given of these ever famous places, with that which he made himself. In this manner he showed the connection of ancient literature with natural history.

We find in the voyages of Spallanzani a new volcanology. He therein teaches the way to measure the intensity of the fire of volcanoes, to glance at the causes, to touch almost, in the analysis which he makes of the lava, that particular gas which, resembling a powerful lever, tears from the bowels of the earth, and raises up to the top of Etna, those torrents of stone in fusion which it disgorges; to survey the nature of those pumice stones, which he has since explained in his artificial pumice-stones. He concludes this charming work with some interesting inquiries into the nature of swallows, their mild dispositions, rapid flight; suggesting that an advantage might be drawn from them in the way of aerial post; their migrations determined by the temperature of the air, and the birth of insects it occasions; in short, he discusses the famous problem of their remaining benumbed during winter; and proves, that artificial cold, much greater than that ever naturally felt in our climates, does not render these birds lethargic. He next speaks of a species of owl, hitherto very ill described; and, lastly, of eels and their generation, which is a problem still in some measure to be solved; but he carries it on by his inquiries to that step, which alone remains to be made for obtaining a complete solution; or to get over it easily by a small number of observations in those times and places pointed out, but which the academical occupations of Spallanzani forced him to give up to others.

Suppl. Vol. II. Part II.

Spallanzani followed the progress of the French chemistry with much satisfaction, nor was he long before he adopted it; it was calculated, for a just conception like his, delighting to give an account of every phenomenon he observed. The fidelity of principles in this new doctrine, the precision in its way of proceeding, the elegance of its interpretation, the generality of its consequences, presently replaced in his mind the hesitations and the obscurities of the ancient chemistry; and his heart anticipated with pleasure the triumphs that it was about to obtain.

In 1791, Spallanzani published a letter addressed to Professor Fortis, upon the Penet Hydroscope. He there relates the experiments which he had directed to be made for ascertaining the degree of confidence which might be allowed to the singular talents of this man; but he ingenuously confesses, that he is not decided upon the reality of the phenomenon.

Spallanzani has often discovered that which might have been deemed impossible. In 1795 he made a discovery of this nature, which he published in his Lettere sopra il sospiro d'un nuovo seno nel Pipìferelli. We therein learn that the bats, if blinded, act in every respect with the same precision as those which have their eyes; that they in the same manner avoid the most trifling obstacles, and that they know where to fix themselves on ceasing their flight. These extraordinary experiments were confirmed by several natural philosophers, and gave occasion to suspect a new sense in these birds, because Spallanzani thought he had evinced by the way of exclusion, that the other senses could not supply the deficiency of that sight which he had deprived them of; but the anatomical details of Professor Jurine, upon the organ of hearing in this singular bird, made him incline afterwards towards the idea, that the sense of hearing might in this case supply that of sight, as in all those where the bats are in the dark.

Spallanzani concluded his literary career for the public, by a letter addressed to the celebrated Gioberti; Sopra la pianta chiuse ne' vasi dentro l'acqua e l'aria, espelle a l'immediata lume solare e a Pomera. It is a misfortune for this part of the science, that his death has deprived us of the discoveries he was about to make in it.

These numerous works, printed and applauded, did not however contain all the series of Spallanzani's labours. He had been occupied a considerable time upon the phenomena of respiration; their resemblances and differences in a great number of species of animals; and he was busily employed in reducing to order his researches upon this subject, which will astonish by the multitude of unforeseen and unexpected facts. He has left a precious collection of experiments and new observations upon animal reproductions, upon sponges, the nature of which he determines, and upon a thousand interesting phenomena which he knew how to draw out of obscurity. He had almost finished his voyage to Constantinople, and had amassed considerable materials for a History of the Sea, when an end was put to his life and his labours.

On the 4th of February 1799, he was seized with a retention of urine, the same night was uneasy, and in the morning he lost all powers of reason, which he never recovered but during very short intervals. His intimate friends, Tourdes, a French physician, and the celebrated Professor Scarpa, did every thing which could be expected from genius, experience, and friendship, to save him; but he died the 17th, after having edified those around him by his piety. This lamentable event overwhelmed all his family in sorrow, occasioned the tears to flow from all his friends, filled his disciples with a deep affliction, and excited the regret of a nation proud of having given him birth.

The reader cannot but have perceived in this sketch the strain of panegyric, rather than the calm narrative of impartial biography. It is, in fact, an abridged translation of an eulogy by a citizen philosopher of Geneva, who has adopted the calendar, and probably the principles of republican France. Some abatement therefore will naturally be made by every Briton of the praises bestowed upon the piety of Spallanzani; but after proper allowance of this kind, truth will proclaim him a very great man. Accordingly, France, Germany, England, all were eager to avail themselves of his works by means of translations. He was admitted into the academies and learned societies of London, Stockholm, Gottingen, Holland, Lyons, Bologna, Turin, Padua, Mantua, and Geneva. He was a correspondent of the academy of sciences of Paris and of Montpelier; and received from the great Frederic himself the diploma of member of the academy of Berlin.