10 Memoir lyftUe Life ofM. Fraimhofer* 



instrument. But he was not destined to accomplish so great 

 an undertaking. In October 1825 he was attacked with a 

 pulmonary complaint, from which he never recovered. The 

 injury which he sustained by the fall of his house seems to 

 have left some effects behind it, and for several years he had 

 suffered from glandular abscesses. He was, however, seldom 

 obliged to discontinue his labours, and there is reason to think 

 that he suffered from exposure to the heat of his furnaces. 

 His faculties never for a moment left him ; and in his few 

 last days, his mind was occupied with the idea of a journey 

 to France and Italy for the recovery of his health. He was 

 cut off on the 7th June 1826, in the fortieth year of his age. 

 A few days before this event he had received from the 

 King of Denmark the diploma of Chevalier of the order of 

 Dannebroga. The whole of the city of Munich took a lively 

 interest in his disease, and felt the most sincere sorrow for his 

 death. The magistrates of the city permitted M. Utzschneider 

 to choose a place for his tomb, and he was interred by the 

 side of the great mechanician M. Reichenbach, who had died 

 a short time before. 



Bavaria has thus lost one of the most distinguished of her sub- 

 jects, and centuries may elapse before Munich receives within 

 her walls an individual so highly gifted and so universally esteem- 

 ed. But great as her loss is, it is not rendered more poignant 

 by the reflection that he lived unhonoured and unrewarded. 

 His own sovereign Maximilian Joseph was his earliest and his 

 latest patron, and by the liberality with which he conferred 

 civil honours and pecuniary rewards on Joseph Fraunhofer, he 

 has immortalized his own name, and added a new lustre to the 

 Bavarian crown. In thus noticing the honours which a grate- 

 ful sovereign had conferred on the distinguished improver of 

 the achromatic telescope, it is impossible to subdue the morti- 

 fying recollection, that no wreath of British gratitude has yet 

 adorned the inventor of that noble instrument. England may 

 well blush when she hears the name of Dollond pronounced 

 without any appendage of honour, and without any associa- 

 tion of gratitude. Even that monumental fame which she 

 used to dispense so freely to the poets whom she starved, has 

 been denied to this benefactor of science, and Westminster 



