NOTE.--Frederic Ruysch (1638-1731) was one of the cleverest anatomists Holland has ever produced. For sixty years he held a professorship of anatomy at Amsterdam, during which time he devoted himself to his art. He obtained from Swammerdam his secret of preserving corpses by means of an injection of coloured wax. Ruysch, it is said, also made use of his own blood for this purpose. His subjects, when prepared, looked like living beings, and showed no signs of corruption. Czar Peter visited Holland in 1698, and was amazed at what he saw in Ruysch's studio. In 1717 the Czar again visited Holland, and succeeded in inducing Ruysch to dispose of his collection of animals, mummies, &c. These were all transported to St. Petersburg. Ruysch formed a second collection as valuable as the first, which after his death was publicly sold. [Footnote 1: See note.] [Footnote 2: De Senectute.] _REMARKABLE SAYINGS OF PHILIP OTTONIERI._[1] CHAPTER I. Philip Ottonieri, a few of whose remarkable sayings I am about to recount, partly heard from his own mouth and partly related to me by others, was born at Nubiana in the province of Valdivento. There he lived most of his life, and died a short time ago, leaving behind him the reputation of having never injured any one either by word or deed. He was detested by the majority of his fellow-citizens, because he took so little interest in the many things that gave them pleasure; although he did nothing to show that he despised those who differed from himself in this respect. He is believed to have been, not only in theory, but also in practice, what so many of his contemporaries professed to be, that is, a philosopher. For this reason other men thought him peculiar, though really he never affected singularity in anything. Indeed, he once said that a man who nowadays practised the greatest possible singularity in dress, manners, or actions, would be far less singular than were those ancients who obtained a reputation for singularity; and that the difference between such a person and his contemporaries would by the ancients have been regarded as scarcely worthy of notice. And, comparing J. J. Rousseau's singularity, which seemed very striking to the people of his generation, with that of Democritus and the first Cynic philosophers, he said that whoever nowadays lived as differently from his contemporaries as these Greeks lived from theirs, would not merely be regarded as singular, but would be treated as outside the pale of human society. He thought, too, that the degree of civilisation reached by any country might be estimated from observation of the degree of singularity possible in the inhabitants of that country.