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place is not easily re-filled. Denmark, his native country, espe- 

 cially has reason to weep for him ; for not only did his scientific 

 achievments shed lustre upon her, but his political labours tended to 

 secure to her those liberal institutions which now so eminently dis- 

 tinguish her from the iron despotism to which France, Italy, and 

 Germany are subjected. 



J. F. Schouw was born in 1789, at Copenhagen, where his father 

 was a wine-merchant. At an early age he exhibited a predilection for 

 Natural History ; and his thirteenth year had hardly been completed 

 when he attended a course of lectures of the celebrated Vahl. At the 

 University, however, he made the law his principal study, and passed 

 a most satisfactory examination. Systematic botany had little attrac- 

 tion for him; and his travels, which, did not extend beyond teni- 

 tories well explored, offered but few materials for the description of 

 new genera and species. Neither did vegetable anatomy and physio- 

 logy find in him an admirer. His taste and energies were directed 

 more to geographical, physical, and economic botany ; and it was in 

 these branches that his genius displayed itself. The geography of 

 plants, so happily conceived by the master-mind of a Humboldt, 

 formed the starting-point for Schouw's scientific labours ; and while 

 yet occupying a subordinate position in the Home Office he wrote a 

 treatise on the true native places of plants, which procured him the 

 title of " Doctor Philosophise." Journeys through Germany, Italy, and 

 France, undertaken during 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820, and again in 

 1829 and 1830, tended to foster his inquiries, and also to familiarize 

 him with the institutions of other countries. 



In 1821 Schouw became Professor in the University of Copenha- 

 gen, and up to thatitime he had confined himself to scientific labours ; 

 but when, in 1830, the French Revolution broke out, and that desire 

 for free political institutions which had made itself so prominent 

 during the last few years began to seize Europe, he ranged himself on 

 the side of the popular party, and was the first who ventured to esta- 

 blish in Denmark a periodical which advocated liberal principles, and 

 which was conducted with so much moderation and propriety, that it 

 soon worked its way into the most intelligent circles of society. It is 

 not our desire to follow Schouw through his political career ; sufl5ce 

 it to say that he was more fortunate than inany of his French and 

 German colleagues, who for a time played a similar part, and deeply 

 suffered for their patriotic devotion on the connuencement of the re- 

 action. In Denmark the liberal party obtained the mastery ; Schouw 



