Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau was born at Dijon on the 4th of January, 1737. His father, Anthony Guyton, was professor of civil law in the University of Dijon, and descended from an ancient and respectable family. At the age of seven he showed an uncommon mechanical turn: being with his father at a small village near Dijon, he there happened to meet a public officer returning from a sale, whence he had brought back a clock that had remained unsold on account of its very bad condition. Morveau supplicated his father to buy it. The purchase was made for six francs. Young Morveau took it to pieces and cleaned it, supplied some parts that were wanting, and put it up again without any assistance. In 1799 this very clock was resold at a higher price, together with the estate and house in which it had been originally placed; having during the whole of that time continued to go in the most satisfactory manner. When only eight years of age, he took his mother's watch to pieces, cleaned it, and put it up again to the satisfaction of all parties. After finishing his preliminary studies in his father's house, he went to college, and terminated his attendance on it at the age of sixteen. About this time he was instructed in botany by M. Michault, a friend of his father, and a naturalist of some eminence. He now commenced law student in the University of Dijon; and, after three years of intense application, he went to Paris to acquire a knowledge of the practice of the law. While in Paris, he not only attended to law, but cultivated at the same time several branches of polite literature. In 1756 he paid a visit to Voltaire, at Ferney. This seems to have inspired him with a love of poetry, particularly of the descriptive and satiric kind. About a year afterwards, when only twenty, he published a poem called "Le Rat Iconoclaste, ou le Jesuite croquée." It was intended to throw ridicule on a well-known anecdote of the day, and to assist in blowing the fire that already threatened destruction to the obnoxious order of Jesuits. The adventure alluded to was this: Some nuns, who felt a strong predilection for a Jesuit, their spiritual director, were engaged in their accustomed Christmas occupation of modelling a representation of a religious mystery, decorated with several small statues representing the holy personages connected with the subject, and among them that of the ghostly father; but, to mark their favourite, his statue was made of loaf sugar. The following day was destined for the triumph of the Jesuit: but, meanwhile, a rat had devoured the valuable puppet. The poem is written after the agreeable manner of the celebrated poem, "Ververt."