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58 attention was directed, together with some of the results to which his investigations led him. After his establishment in the Museum of Natural History, much of his time was occupied with the objects whose history he was appointed to teach; and so favourably were his labours in this department received by the public, that his interest as well as his inclination would have conspired to make him cultivate it to the uttermost. But his exertions received an early check, and were at last entirely stopped, by the inroads of a most afflicting calamity. His eyes had long been weak, and as he advanced in years, they became so diseased, that he was obliged to refrain from using them for the examination of any minute object. Hence it was that he had recourse to the celebrated Latreille to assist him in that part of his system of invertebrata which related to insects. Notwithstanding every precaution, the disorder increased, and at last produced total blindness, which continued till his death. "This event was the more distressing," says Cuvier, "because it overtook him in such circumstances that he could obtain none of those means of alleviation which might otherwise have been procured. He had been married four times, and was the father of seven children. The whole of his little patrimony, and even the fruits of his early economy, were lost in one of those hazardous investments which shameless speculators so often hold out as baits to the credulous. His retired life, the consequence of his youthful habits, and attachment to systems so little in