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Biographical Memoir of the late Henry KuliL S 



bours; for although he managed nearly the whole business 

 himself, he so assiduously cultivated them as to be taken notice 

 of by the most illustrious naturalists of our time. 



After having undergone the usual preparatory exercises in 

 the Latin school of Hanau, he determined to proceed to the Uni- 

 versity of Heidelberg, with the design of devoting his whole 

 life to the study of natural history, and the resolution of pa- 

 tiently submitting to ail the inconveniences which, from the 

 want of sufficient pecuniary resources, he foresaw could not be 

 avoided, in the pursuit of this science. On this occasion he 

 writes in the following manner to his friend Bojes : " What li- 

 terary profession I shall follow, I do not know. This I know, 

 however, that, without the study of natural history, I cannot 

 live. I therefore wish, with all my heart, that whatever situa- 

 tion I may have in future, it may leave for me a few by-hours, 

 in which I may indulge in those investigations which are of all 

 others the most agreeable to me. I do not seem to have been 

 born for the study of law, which some recommend to me to fol- 

 low ; and so I imagine my best plan will be to study medicine. 

 But I should gladly renounce this also, the moment an oppor- 

 tunity might occur, that I might give myself wholly up to na- 

 tiu-al history. But if this do not happen, I shall accommodate 

 myself to circumstances, and study medicine, for physicians are 

 required all the world over ; and when my studies are finished, 

 I shall endeavour, if possible, to get out to America, or where- 

 ever fortune may lead." 



He, therefore, in the month of September 1816, had made 

 up his mind to go to Heidelberg, when Theodore Van Swin- 

 deren, one of the Groningen professors, becoming acquainted 

 with him, prevailed upon him to follow him to Groningen. 

 This arrangement was fortunate for Kiihl ; for although his ge- 

 nius and assiduity would have led him to eminence, indepen- 

 dently of Swinderen, yet this object could only have been at- 

 tained by a longer way, and after much time. For with what 

 difficulties would he have had to struggle, and how many sour- 

 ces which Holland disclosed would have been lost to him ? But 

 here, under an entirely different sky, — in the midst of other 

 plants and other animals, — in the vicinity of the sea, which he 



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