12 JOURNAL OF THE 



tion was of a very respectable order, and certain it is that the qual- 

 ities of his heart were not neglected ; his moral character was built 

 on the broad and liberal basis of justice, love and charity, so dis- 

 tinctly inculcated in the doctrines of his community. 



In the baneful spirit of uncharitableness, he saw nothing either 

 lovely or respectable; it never found a lodging in his heart, and he 

 had accordingly no occasion in after life to eject so unprofitable a 

 tenant. 



His first impulse towards the study of botany had been received 

 at Nazareth, before being placed as a pupil in the institution. 

 When a mere child, being on a visit to that place with his grand- 

 father. Bishop de Watteville, it chanced that a specimen of the 

 Lichen digitatus, lying on a table in one of the apartments of the 

 school, attracted his attention and led to a few observations on its 

 name and physiology. From this moment he dated his partiality 

 for the beauties of the vegetable kingdom. When his abode was 

 afterwards fixed at the school and he enjoyed the advantage of some 

 instruction in the elements of botany from one of the teachers in 

 the seminary, he pursued his researches in this delightful science 

 with the most enthusiastic ardor. He seems to have been, in truth, 

 a very child of Flora, and with the vernal breath of that divinity, 

 to have inhaled all the benign influences which the beauty, simplic- 

 ity and grandeur of nature's truth are everywhere fitted to inspire. 



A partial flora of Nazareth and its vicinity, formed at this early 

 period, is still among his manuscript papers, and the occupation 

 which its composition afforded to his moments of relaxation con- 

 tinued through life to constitute the delight of his leisure hours. 

 Such were his attainments that before the close of his connection 

 with the Nazareth institution, young von Schweinitz was appointed 

 to participate in the duties of instruction by taking charge of some 

 of the junior classes in that Seminary. 



In 1798 his father was called to Germany whither he was attended 

 by his family, and where the subject of this memoir, then a youth 

 of eighteen, was in the same year established as a student in the 

 theological institution in Niesky, in upper Lusatia. Here enjoying 

 an intercourse with young men of decided and acknowledged talent, 

 and entering on studies which excited a generous emulation, his fac- 

 ulties were roused to redoubled energy and his application became 

 proportionately intense. The late excellent J. B. de Albertini, then 

 one of the professors in the institution, exercised a powerful influ- 

 ence over the mind of von Schweinitz, and to the clearness and sim. 

 ;plicity of his views, his scientific and truly philosophical ideas, was 



