ANECDOTES, &c. ALDROVANDI. ULYSSES Aldrovandi, a celebrated philosopher and physician, public reader of logic and botany, the Sir Hans Sloane of his day in Italy, was born in the city of Bologna in the year 1521. His passion for natural history was so great, that whilst yet a boy he began to make collections in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, &c.; and notwithstanding his income was slender, he allowed a person (whose pursuits were in a great measure congenial with his own) two hundred ducats a year for the space of thirty years, to make drawings of plants, fruits, &c. The draftsman drew and coloured many of the latter, after nature, to a degree of temptation. He made a present, during his lifetime, VOL. II. B lifetime, of his library to the senate of Bologna, which, it seems, had the taste to appreciate the gift; for they ordered apartments to be erected in the public palace, in which this intellectual treasure was deposited with great ceremony. The first room contains a number of natural subjects, such as minerals, metals, &c. extremely scarce and curious in their kind; the second and third, books in every branch of natural history, many of which are extremely rare, with a wellarranged catalogue of the whole: the fourth is set apart for plants, fishes, quadrupeds, and birds; the fifth is devoted to engravings on copper, and wooden cuts, originally intended for such works as he designed to print. His taste and penetration in his favourite study could be only équalled by his industry; yet, lamentable to relate! with virtues that ought to have ensured the friendship of the good, and learning that might inflame the pride of patronage, he died in great distress in his old days, in an hospital in his nafive city, off the 10th of May 1605. Cardinal Montalto, the Duke of Urbino, Franciscus Mo rea, and Pope Clement VIII. caused several of his writings to be printed. The following is a list of those that have appeared from time to time in print: " Ornithologiæ, |