Some threescore years ago a little instrument was sold by the name of the Nocturnal Remembrancer; it consisted merely of some leaves of what is called asses-skin, in a leathern case wherein there was one aperture from side to side, by aid of which a straight line could be pencilled in the dark: the leaf might be drawn up, and fixed at measured distances, till it was written on from top to bottom. _Our_ Doctor, (—now that thou art so well acquainted with him and likest him so cordially, Reader, it would be ungenerous in me to call him mine)—_our_ Doctor needed no such contrivances. He used to say that he laid aside all his cares when he put off his wig, and that never any were to be found under his night cap. Happy man, from whom this might be believed! but so even had been the smooth and noiseless tenour of his life that he could say it truly. Anxiety and bereavements had brought to him no sleepless nights, no dreams more distressful than even the realities that produce and blend with them. Neither had worldly cares or ambitious hopes and projects ever disquieted him, and made him misuse in midnight musings the hours which belong to sleep. He had laid up in his mind an inexhaustible store of facts and fancies, and delighted in nothing more than in adding to these intellectual treasures; but as he gathered knowledge only for its own sake, and for the pleasure of the pursuit, not with any emulous feelings, or aspiring intent —to be for ever known, And make the years to come his own, he never said with the studious Elder Brother in Fletcher's comedy, the children Which I will leave to all posterity, Begot and brought up by my painful studies Shall be my living issue. And therefore—_voilà un homme qui était fort savant et fort eloquent, et neanmoins_—(altering a little the words of Bayle),—_il n'est pas connu dans la république des lettres, et il y a eu une infinité de gens beaucoup moins habile que lui, qui sont cent fois plus connus; c'est qu'ils ont publié des livres, et que la presse n'a point roulé sur ses productions. Il importe extrêmement aux hommes doctes, qui ne veulent pas tomber dans l'oubli après leur mort, de s'ériger en auteurs; sans cela leur nom ne passe guère la première génération; res erat unius ætatis. Le commun des lecteurs ne prend point garde au nom des savans qu'ils ne connaissent que par le témoignage d'autrui; on oublie bientôt un homme, lorsque l'eloge qu'en font les autres finit par—le public n'a rien ou de lui._ Bayle makes an exception of men who like Peiresc distinguish themselves _d'un façon singulière_.