37 



ADANSON, MICHAEL. 



ADDISON, JOSEPH. 



38 



his education at Harvard College. On the first outbreaking in his 

 native province of the irritation and disturbances occasioned by the 

 Stamp Act in 1 765, Adams threw himself with zeal and determination 

 on the popular side. From that moment the forwarding and main- 

 taining the cause of his country's independence became the business 

 of his life. His name appears subscribed to the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence in 1776. After the conclusion of the war he was nominated 

 a member of the convention for settling the constitution of Massachu- 

 setts ; and he afterwards occupied a seat in the senate of that state, 

 and presided over it for some years. In 1789 he was elected to the 

 office of lieutenant-governor, and in 1794 to that of governor, to which 

 he was re-elected annually till 1797, when he retired from public life. 

 He died at Boston on the 2nd of October, 1803. Samuel Adams was 

 one of the firmest and most active patriots of the revolution, and 

 powerfully contributed to the happy termination of the great cause 

 to which he devoted his life. But he was not a politician of very 

 enlarged views ; and useful as he proved in the subordinate sphere in 

 which he acted, there can be little doubt, from many parts of his 

 conduct, that the national struggle would hardly have been brought 

 to the successful issue with which it was eventually crowned, if it had 

 not been guided by wiser heads than his. He was actuated in the 

 whole course of his political career almost exclusively by one idea or 

 fueling jealousy of delegated power, however guarded. " Samuel 

 Adams," says one of his friends and admirers, "would have the state 

 of Massachusetts govern the Union, the town of Boston govern 

 Massachusetts, and that he should govern the town of Boston, and 

 then the whole would not be intentionally ill-governed." 



ADANSON, MICHAEL, a French naturalist of high reputation, 

 was born at Aix in Provence, April 7, 1727. He was of Scotch 

 extraction, but his family had become exiles in consequence of the 

 troubles that distracted Scotland in the early part of the 18th century. 

 At a very early age he was placed in the University of Paris, under 

 the care of the celebrated Reaumur and of Bernard de Jussieu ; and 

 it is supposed that from these preceptors he imbibed that love of the 

 s-.tudy of natural history by which he afterwards became distinguished 

 in so eminent a degree. His successes in carrying off the academical 

 prizes from his competitors soon attracted attention, and Needham, 

 the well-known microscopic observer, having upon one occasion been 

 witness to his triumph, presented him with a microscope, accom- 

 panied, it is said, by these prophetic words " Young man, you have 

 studied books enough ; your future path will be among the works of 

 nature, not of man." At this time great originality of thought and a 

 strong bias for systematic arrangement had already begun to develop 

 itself. Emulous of the reputation of Linnams, which had already 

 found its way among the French, young Adanson is said, when only 

 14, to have sketched out not less than four methods of classifying 

 plants. His friends had destined him for the church, but a feeling 

 that his pursuits, and perhaps his temper, were but ill adapted to the 

 duties of the priesthood, induced him to resolve upon seeking some 

 other employment, in case his slender patrimony should proye 

 insufficient for his wants. 



The genius of Adanson was much too active to allow him to remain 

 in the walks of quiet life. An opportunity occurring of visiting the 

 country whence ivory, and gums, and frankincense were procured, he 

 eagerly embraced the occasion, although at the expense of a consider- 

 able portion of his fortune. At that time the natural history of 

 Africa was almost unknown, except from such of its commercial 

 products as were brought to Europe. In 1748 he embarked for 

 Senegal, being then 21. Five years were spent by him in this colony, 

 duriug which time he succeeded in forming considerable collections 

 in every branch of natural history. Not only were botany and 

 (oology the objects of his attention, but he amassed a large store of 

 meteorological observations ; he made himself acquainted with the 

 language of the native tribes, and carefully preserved their respective 

 vocabularies ; he traced the river Senegal to a considerable distance in 

 the interior, formed charts of the country, and finally returned to 

 Paris in 1753, rich in knowledge, but impoverished in worldly means. 

 His ' Natural History of Senegal,' published at Paris four years after- 

 wards, is a mass of original views, and of valuable practical informa- 

 tion. Among other things, it contained the first attempt upon record 

 of classifying shells according to the animals they contain, instead of 

 their external forms alone. The opinions that Adanson had early held 

 of the insufficiency of the classifications in natural history at that time 

 received in Europe, had become confirmed by his discoveries in Africa. 

 He saw that however easy and complete the systems of Linnaeus and 

 Touruefort might seem to those acquainted with the European Flora 

 only, they were both essentially defective when applied to vegetation 

 in a more extended manner. He perceived that the sexual system of 

 Linnaeus was founded upon incomplete and partial views. To the 

 method of Tournefort the objections appeared fewer, and accordingly 

 he determined to attempt a classification of his own, of which that of 

 Tournefort might serve as the basis. This appeared in 1763, in two 

 Toluines 8vo, under the name of ' Families of Plants.' In this work 

 Adanson particularly insisted upon the indispensable necessity of a 

 system being so far in accordance with nature, that all those objects 

 which most resemble each other may be classed together; he demon- 

 strated tnat, to effect this, it is absolutely necessary for a system to be 

 founded upon a consideration of all the ports of the objects which it 



comprehends, and that it cannot be confined to differences in the 

 nature of a few organs only ; the artificial system of Linnaeus he for 

 that reason most justly considered inferior to the method of Tourne- 

 fort. In many respects this work of Adanson's deserves the eulogium 

 passed upon it by one of his historians, who pronounces it a production 

 not more brilliant than profound. Unfortunately for its author, and 

 still more for science, his views were more advanced than those of his 

 contemporaries; his perceptions of botanical truths, however just, 

 were of a nature not to be valued by those who had less experience 

 or acuteness than himself ; he also attempted to introduce a barbarous 

 nomenclature, which, it must be confessed, was at variance with com- 

 mon sense ; and what was worse than all, he had unceremoniously 

 rejected that system of Linnaeus which had become the basis of the 

 botanical creed of almost all Europe. For these reasons, notwith- 

 standing the high character of Adanson's ' Families of Plants,' they 

 have scarcely had any circulation beyond France ; and when, in 1789, 

 the ' Genera Plantarum ' of Jussieu made its appearance, the utility 

 of his work generally ceased. 



From this period we have little to record concerning the scientific 

 career of Adanson. A few miscellaneous papers, a chimerical project 

 of a vast ' Encyclopaedia of Natural History' to contain 40,000 figures, 

 and a portion of the early part of the botanical division of the ' Sup- 

 plement to the French Encyclopaedia,' are all that he has executed. 

 Up to the period of the French revolution, he appears to have been 

 chiefly occupied in amassing collections for the stupendous work he 

 had in contemplation, and in making experiments upon vegetable 

 physiology. That political catastrophe overwhelmed him in the ruiu 

 it brought for a time upon his country ; the little that remained of his 

 fortune was annihilated ; he had the mortification to see his plantations 

 of mulberry-trees, which had been long the object of his simple care, 

 destroyed by a ferocious rabble ; and he full into so lamentable a state 

 of destitution, that when, upon the establishment of the Institute of 

 France some years after, he was invited to become one of the earliest 

 members, he was obliged to refuse the invitation to attend " because 

 he had no shoes." In his latter days he enjoyed a small pension from 

 the French government ; but his constitution was broken by the cala- 

 mities he had nndergone : a complication of maladies tormented him, 

 a softening of the bones confined him to his bed, and on the 6th of 

 August 1806 he was finally released from his afflictions by the hand 

 of death, in the 80th year of his age. 



As a philanthropist, his name will always be respected by every 

 friend of civil liberty ; for he was among the first to plead the cause 

 of the slaves, and to insist upon the impolicy, as well as injustice, of 

 forced labour. In 1753 a plan, very like that upon which the new 

 American colony of Liberia hai been established, was presented by 

 him to the French government, for the whole of the French provinces 

 in Africa. The ministers of such a sovereign as Louis XV. were not 

 the men to listen favourably to a project of this nature, and it fell to 

 the ground. Such was his love of his country, that, although his cir- 

 cumstances do not seem ever to have been very good, he had firmness 

 enough to resist offers from the Emperor of Austria, Catherine of 

 Russia, and the King of Spain, to enter into their service. Under the 

 cruel misfortunes that attended his latter days he is represented to have 

 exhibited great patriotism and magnanimity, which was the more to be 

 commended because he was of an impetuous and irascible temper. 



(Bibl. Univ., vol. i. ; Spreng., Hist. Jt. Herb., v. ii. ; Art. ' Adanson,' 

 in Rees's Oycl. Suppl.) 

 ADDINGTON. [SIDMOUTH, LORD.] 



ADDISON, JOSEPH. This eminent writer was the son of the Rev. 

 Lancelot Addison, a clergyman of considerable learning, who eventually 

 obtained the deanery of Lichfield, but was at the time of the birth of 

 his son rector of the parish of Milston, near Amesbury, in Wiltshire. 

 Here Addisou was born on the 1st of May, 1672. After having been 

 put first to a school in Amesbury taught by the Rev. Mr. Nash, and 

 then to that of the Rev. Mr. Taylor at Salisbury, he was sent to the 

 Charterhouse, at which seminary he first became acquainted with his 

 afterwards celebrated friend Steele. From this school he went about 

 the age of fifteen to Queen's College, Oxford, and removed to Magdalen 

 College upon obtaining a scholarship two years afterwards. He is 

 said already to have obtained considerable facility in the writing of 

 Latin verse; and this talent, which he continued to cultivate and exer- 

 cise, first brought him into reputation at the university. Several of 

 bis Latin poems, most of which were probably produced before he had 

 attained his 26th year, were afterwards published in the second volume 

 of the collection entitled ' Musarum Anglicanarurn Analecta.' Tho 

 first composition which he gave to the world in his native language 

 was a copy of verses addressed in 1694 toDryden, which procured him 

 the acquaintance and patronage of that distinguished poet. He soon 

 after published a translation in verse of part of Virgil's Fourth 

 'Georgic;' and he had also the honour of writing the critical dis- 

 course on the ' Qeorgics,' prefixed by Dryden to his translation, which 

 appeared in 1697. But before this Addison had made himself known 

 to one of the most'enlightened and influential patrons of literature in 

 that day, the Lord Keeper Somers, by a poem which he addressed to 

 him on one of the campaigns of King William. He was also intro- 

 duced by Congreve to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Montague, 

 afterwards Lord Halifax. The advantageous connections which ho 

 hod thus formed seem, together with other considerations, to have 



