1005 



FRASER, SIMON. 



FREDERICK I. (OF GERMANY). 



1CC6 



chanced to be a witness of the great 6re of Copenhagen, which 

 destroyed a third part of the city. In Paris he Tentureii on a piece 

 of composition in French verse, which was printed in a French perio- 

 dical, and which he reprinted thirty years afterwards in the introduc- 

 tion to bis Swedish poetn, founded on a tale of the revolution, ' Julie 

 de St Julien." During his absence he was elected librarian to the 

 University of Abo, and afterwards professor of literary history. After 

 the transfer of Finland to Russia by the war of 1809, he resolved to 

 remove to Sweden, where he remained for the rest of his life. At first 

 he officiated as pastor of Kumla, in the diocese of Strengnas, a parish 

 remote from the capital, but he was afterwards minister of the church 

 of Clara at Stockholm, where the poet Chorams had preceded him ; 

 nd iu 1834 he was chosen Bishop of Hernosand. While still a 

 resident in Finland, he had been chosen one of the eighteen of the 

 Swedish Academy, a distinction of the same importance for a literary 

 man in Sweden, as to be a member of the Royal Academy here for an 

 arti-t in England. In 1824 he became its secretary, and remained 

 so for ten years, during which it was part of his duty to write a 

 series of biographical notices, which were much admired for their 

 literary merits. He appears to have resigned the secretaryship on his 

 elevation to the bishopric, which he held till his death in October 1847. 

 Laing in his travels ia Sweden gives an account of his meeting with 

 Bishop Franze'n on board of a steam-boat, when going on a visit to 

 his northern diocese, and speaks of the general affection and veneration 

 with which he was regarded. 



Archbishop Wallin, Bishop Trgner, and Bishop Franze'n were three 

 of the most distinguished poets of Sweden in the present century. 

 They were all three associated in the new Swedish version of the 

 Psalms, to produce which a commission was appointed in 1814, and 

 respecting the excellence of which there is but one voi^e, it being 

 generally retarded as the best in Europe. It is singular that so little 

 reference has been made to this fact in the frequent discussions that 

 have taken place on the expediency of obtaining a new poetical version 

 of the Psalms in English. The poetical works of Franze'n were 

 collected in five volume* at Orebro in 1824 and subsequent years. 

 The most successful are decidedly the songs and shorter pieces, many 

 of the songs enjoying a high popularity both in Sweden and Finland. 

 Their prevailing character is sweetness. The longer narrative poems, 

 one of which ' Sten Sture,' extends to twenty cantos and fills an 

 octavo volume, are of a somewhat dry simplicity, both of style ami 

 incident, approaching far too nearly to the level of prose. Franzdn 

 was regarded by Swedish writers as belonging to neither of the two 

 rival schools of poetry in his time and country, the 'Academic 'or 

 Classical, and the ' Phosphoriatic ' or Romantic, but as standing at 

 the head of a third or neutral party. His sermons, of which four 

 volumes were published, are unusually animated ; he was also the 

 author of some controversial writings against the doctrines of the 

 Rationalists, called forth by the controversy respecting Straus's ' Life 

 of Jesus.' The biographical sketches from his pen already mentioned 

 have been collected under the title of ' Minnesteckningar." In the 

 introductory speech before the Swedish Academy prefixed to them, 

 the reader remarks a tone of courtly deference in speaking of 

 Charles XIII., and even of the Russian government, to avoid living 

 under which he left Finland, the absence of which would perhaps 

 have inspired a higher notion of the dignity of Franzdn's character. 



FRASER, SIMON. [LOVAT, LORD.] 



FRAUNHOFER, JOSEPH, a distinguished optician of Bavaria, 

 was born at Straubing in that kingdom, in 1787, of parents in humble 

 life ; and by their death he was left an orphan when eleven years 

 of age. 



He had been accustomed to labour from his childhood, and he was 

 early engaged aa an apprentice to a manufacturer, who exacted from 

 him an unremitting attention to the mechanical operations connected 

 with his calling ; yet the youth found means, without the aid of an 

 instructor, to supply in a certain degree the deficiencies of his educa- 

 tion, and to make some progress in the study of mathematics. 



An accident, which nearly cost him his life, was the cause that the 

 merit of Fraunhofer became known : an old house in which he lodged 

 fell down one day and buried him in the ruins ; he was extricated 

 however, and happily came out unhurt. The interest excited by the 

 dang-r which the young man had escaped drew upon him the notice 

 of several persons of rank and fortune ; and these, being struck witb 

 admiration on discovering the efforts he had made in the midst of 

 many adverse circumstances to cultivate the sciences, procured for 

 him an introduction to the celebrated Reichenbach, who received him, 

 he being them about twenty years of age, into the great manufactory 

 for the construction of mathematical and philosophical instruments 

 which he had established at Bunedictbaiern, near Munich. In this 

 situation Fraunhofer had ample scope for the exorcise of his talents ; 

 and he distinguished himself as much by his inventive genius as by 

 his skill in executing the mechanical processes on which he was 

 employed. Enabled now to study optics as a science, he used the 

 means at his disposal to make many important experiments on light, 

 anil to construct instruments of superior kiuds for celestial observa- 

 tions. By his discoveries and improvements he greatly increased the 

 reputation of the establishment to which he belonged ; and at length 

 it became his own property. 



Fraunhofer was a member of the University of Erlangen and of the 



Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich ; and in 1822 this academy 

 appointed him keeper of the Museum of Physics. The king of Bavaria 

 conferred ou him the order of Civil Merit, and the king of Denmark 

 that of Danebrog. He died in 1826, in the thirty-ninth year of 

 his age. 



His most remarkable discovery was that of the existence of a series 

 of dark lines in the spectrum produced by the refraction of the sun's 

 light in a prism of glass or other transparent medium. The prisms 

 were formed of a material ftve from veins, and in the experiments 

 they were disposed so that the light entered aad emerged at equal 

 angles with their sides, by which means each of the coloured spaces 

 in the solar spectrum on the screen were homogeneous : on examining 

 these with a telescope it was perceived that they contained many black 

 lines parallel to one another aud to the breadth of the spectrum ; and 

 Fraunhofer ascertained that they amounted in number to about 354 ; 

 Sir David Brewster has since discovered many more. By means of a 

 theodolite he measured the angular distances between the most 

 strongly marked of these lines in every two of the differently coloured 

 spaces iu the spectrum produced by each of the prisms employed in 

 the experiments ; and thus he was enabled to determine with great 

 accuracy the indices of refraction for the mean rays of the prisumtie 

 colours in each of the media of which the prisms were formed, as well 

 as the dnpercive powers of those media. He observed similar black 

 lines in the spectra of the moon, Mars, Venus, and some of the fix<jd 

 stars ; also in the spectra formed by the two polarised pencils produced 

 by a prism of Iceland spar. An account of tbe observations on spectra 

 was published in a pamphlet entitled ' Bestimmung des Brechungsund 

 Farbenzer-Streuungs-Vermb'gens verachiedener Glasarten in B zug auf 

 die Vervollkommnung achromatischer Fernrb'hre,' 4to, Munich, 1815. 

 Fraunhofer also made many highly curious and interesting experi- 

 ments on the phenomena arising from the interference of light in 

 passing through small apertures of different forms, aud through wire 

 gratings. An account of these experiments on the inflexion of light 

 was published in 4to, at Munich, under the title of ' Neue Modifikation 

 des Lichtes durch gegenseitige Einwirkung und Beugung der Strahlen 

 uud Gesetze derselbeu.' 



Fraunhofer executed an equatorially-mounted telescope for the 

 observatory at Dorpat. The diameter of the object-glass is nearly 

 10 inches, and its focal length about 16 feet ; it consists, as usual, of a 

 convex lens of crown glass, and a concave lens of flint glass, but the 

 materials were compounded by himself, and the performance of the 

 instrument is said to be superior to that of any which had been made 

 before. A description of the telescope is given in the ' Astronomische 

 Nachrichten," Nos. 74, 75, 76, with a memoir on the refractive and 

 dispersive powers of different kiuds of glass. In the same work is a 

 memoir by Fraunhofer on halos, parhelia, aud the like phenomena : iu 

 this he ascribes the formation of the small solar and lunar halos to 

 the inflexion of light in the vapour of the atmosphere ; and that of 

 the larger kind to the refraction in hexagonal prisms of ice. 



FREDERICK I., Emperor of Germany, suruamed BARBAROSSA, was 

 born in 1121, and succeeded his uncle Conrad III. on the imperial 

 throne in 1152. Though Conrad was not deficient, either iu warlike 

 spirit or in talents, an unhappy concurrence of circumstances had 

 prevented him from regulating, as might have been wished, all the 

 domestic and foreign concerns of the empire. So many import.at 

 affairs, both in church aud state, demanded immediate attention, so 

 many difficulties were to be overcome, that it required a man of no 

 common energy to accomplish such a task ; and of this Conrad him- 

 self was so sensible, that he did not recommend to the princes of the 

 empirj his young son Frederick, but his nephew Frederick, son of 

 Frederick duke of Suabia, by Judith daughter of Henry duke of 

 Bavaria, who had already given proofs of his personal courage. 

 Accordingly on the 17th day after the death of Conrad, Frederick 

 was unanimously chosen his successor by the temporal aud ecclesias- 

 tical princes assembled at Frankfurt, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle 

 five days after. In the second year of his reign, Frederick settled the 

 dispute between Canute and Sueno, competitors for the Danish crown, 

 in favour of Sueno, whom he however compelled to do him homage 

 as his vassal. But his chief attention was directed to Italy. Com- 

 plaints were made by the Apulians against Itoger king of Sicily ; and 

 some citizens of Lodi also came, and represented in strong colours the. 

 tyrannical conduct of the Milanese. Frederick sent an envoy with a 

 letter, enjoining the Milanese to refrain from such proceedings, but 

 they tore his letter to pieces, and his envoy saved his life by timely 

 flight. This and other important considerations called him to Italy 

 in 1155, where he held an assembly iu the plain of Roncaglia, to 

 receive the homage of most of the great Italian lords and principal 

 cities. In this, his first expedition into Italy, he in some measure 

 humbled the Milanese, but not choosing to attack their city took the 

 road to Turin, received on the way the submission of many cities, and 

 in particular inflicted severe chastisement on Asti. Having taken 

 Tortona, after a two months' siege, he allowed the inhabitants to 

 retire, but gave the place up to plunder, after which it was entirely 

 burnt aud destroyed. After being crowned king of Italy at Pavia, he 

 advanced rapidly towards Rome, where Adrian IV. had just suc- 

 ceeded Pope Auastasius. The city having been excited by Arnold 

 of Brescia to dispute the authority of the pope, Adrian, who was a 

 man of great resolution, excommunicated Arnold and his partisans, 



