This,
likewise, was the time he received visits, if any were paid him. He
often used this expression: "Those that come to see me, do me honour;
those that stay away, do me a favour." It is easy to conceive, that a
man of this temper was not crowded with salutations: there was only
now and then an Antony that would pay Paul a visit.
Among his papers was found a Greek and Latin index to Hippocrates,
more copious and exact than that of Pini, which he had finished only a
year before his death. Such a work required the assiduity and patience
of a hermit [49]. There is, likewise, a journal of the weather, kept
without interruption, for more than forty years, in which he has
accurately set down the state of the barometer and thermometer, the
dryness and moisture of the air, the variations of the wind in the
course of the day, the rain, the thunders, and even the sudden storms,
in a very commodious and concise method, which exhibits, in a little
room, a great train of different observations. What numbers of such
remarks had escaped a man less uniform in his life, and whose
attention had been extended to common objects!
All the estate which he left is a collection of medals, another of
herbs, and a library rated at two thousand crowns; which make it
evident that he spent much more upon his mind than upon his body.
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