439 



SIAM, KINGS OF. 



SICARD, EOCH AMBROSE CUCURRON. 



40 



.the last-mentioned standards, which was considerable, had been 

 observed by Mr. Graham in 1742. 



In 1833 the Royal Astronomical Society caused a new standard 

 measure to be made with all possible accuracy ; this is a brass tube, 

 or rather, it consists of three brass tubes drawn within one another, 

 and the scale, which is 5 feet long, divided into inches and tenths, is 

 formed on the upper part of the exterior surface between two lines 

 drawn parallel to the axis of the tube. By careful comparison it has 

 been found that 3 feet on this scale exceeds 3 feet on the Shuckburgh 

 scale by '000079 inch ; and it may be observed here that 3 feet on the 

 latter scale exceed the imperial yard which is at present in use by 

 00058 inch. ('Mem. lloyal Astr. Soc.,' vol. ix.) 



It is said of Sir George Shuckburgh that in matters of science no 

 man was more cautious of making hasty inferences or of forming 

 general conclusions from partial or inaccurate observations. He had 

 travelled on the Continent ; and being a diligent cultivator of astro- 

 nomy, he fitted up an observatory with instruments which he caused 

 to be constructed by Mr. Ramsden. He died at his seat in Warwick- 

 shire, September 1804, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, leaving the 

 character of a man of great integrity, and, as a senator, of independent 

 conduct. 



*SIAM, KINGS OF. MOXGKUT, the present king of Sinm, was 

 born October 18, 1804, in the city of Bangkok. He signs his name 

 S. P. P. M. MONGKUT, the initial letters representing titles of dignity, 

 that is to say, SOMDETCH PHRA PARAMENDR MAHA MONGKUT, and these 

 are the Sanskrit titles which he has assumed as king. His Siamese 

 names are CIIOM KLAU CHAU YD HUA. Sir John Bowring, in dedicat- 

 ing his book, ' The Kingdom and People of Siam,' to the king, accu- 

 mulating all his titles, addresses him as " His Majesty Phra Bard 

 Somdetch Phra Paramendr Maha Mongkut Phra Chom Klau Chau yu 

 Hua." His younger brother, who was born about 1807, is associated 

 with him in the kingly dignity, and they are styled respectively the 

 First King and Second King. The signature of the Second King is 

 S. PIN KLAU CHAU YU HUA, tlra initial S. probably representing the 

 title Somdetch. 



Ayuthia, the former capital of Siam, which is about fifty miles 

 higher up the river Meiuam than Bangkok, is stated to have been 

 founded about 1350, and to have been the seat of thirty-three kings 

 of three distinct dynasties, including three or four usurpers. Ayuthia 

 was taken and devastated in 1765-68 by the Birmans, who also put. the 

 king of Siam to death, and governed the country with despotic cruelty. 

 At length Phya Tarksing, commonly called Phya Tak (Tark), military 

 governor of one of the Siamese provinces, headed a successful insur- 

 rection against the Birmans, and expelled them from the country in 

 1769. He then proclaimed himself king of Siam, and founded the 

 city of Bangkok, which thenceforth became the capital of the king- 

 dom of Siam. Phya Tak reigned till 1782, when, in consequence of 

 his exactions and acts of cruelty, an insurrection was organised by 

 the Phya Chakri, or commander in chief, who belonged to the previous 

 royal family. He marched with an army to Bangkok, put the king 

 to death, took possession of the throne, and was crowned in May 

 1782. He was named Phuti Chau Luang; he reigned twenty-seven 

 years, and then died, when he was succeeded by his son, the 

 father of the present kings of Siam. He commenced his reign Sep- 

 tember 11, 1809, and immediately afterwards put to death more than 

 one hundred persons of distinction, whom he suspected of being 

 opposed to his accession to the throne. With the exception of this 

 act of atrocity, his reign was by no means of a sanguinary or oppres- 

 sive character. His popular name was Pheen Din Klang. He was 

 the king to whom Mr. Crawfurd was sent on a commercial mission in 

 1822 by the Marquis of Hastings, then governor-general of India. 

 (' Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the 

 Courts of Siam and Cochin-China,' 4to, 1828.) The king died July 

 20, 1824, and was succeeded by an illegitimate son, known as Krom 

 Chiat, who had been for some time minister of foreign affairs, and was 

 a man of intrigue and influence. The late king had only two children 

 by his queen, namely Chau Fa Yai, or Chau Fa Mongkut, and Chau 

 Fa Noi, the present First King and Second King. Krom Chiat was 

 several years older than his legitimate brothers. Chau Fa Mongkut 

 did not contest his undoubted right to the throne, but retired to a 

 pagoda, and entered the religious order, by this means probably saving 

 his life and securing his liberty. The regal name of Krom Chiat wt.s 

 Phra Nang Klau Chau yu Acca. He died April 2, 1851, and the 

 present king was crowned on the 15th of May. The person who is 

 now Kalahom, or prime minister, with the aid of his powerful family, 

 was mainly instrumental in placing the two brothers in their present 

 regal positions. He is described by Sir John Bowring as a man of 

 extraordinary sagacity and intelligence ; and it was chiefly through 

 his exertions, aided by the Second King, that the commercial treaty, 

 which was the object of Bowring's mission, was brought to a satis- 

 factory conclusion. 



Chau Fa Mongkut, in the quietude of the pagoda to which he had 

 retired, devoted his time to study, became a good Pali scholar, and 

 acquired also the Sanskrit, Cingalese, and Peguan languages. He was 

 taught Latin chiefly by Bishop Palegoix, who was head of the French 

 Roman Catholic Missionaries, and English by the Protestant Mis- 

 sionaries from the United States of America. His knowledge of the 

 English language ia very imperfect, or at least was so when Sir John 



Bowring was there, as is apparent from several documents written by 

 him, and published in ' The Kingdom and People of Siam.' Chau Fa 

 Mongkut also occupied himself with astronomical investigations, and 

 learned to calculate eclipses, and determine latitudes and longitudes 

 by observing the occupations of the stars, and by the use of the 

 chronometer. 



The Second King, whose proper title is Wangna, or Junior King, is 

 an intelligent and highly cultivated man, who lives much in the style 

 of an opulent European nobleman. He speaks and writes English 

 with great accuracy. He is much devoted to scientific studies, and 

 has acquired a large amount of information. He has collections of 

 books and philosophical instruments. His palace is nearly as extensive 

 as that of the First King. Within it is a building in which he gene- 

 rally resides, and which is fitted up in the style of a handsome 

 European edifice. He is surrounded by insignia of royalty similar to 

 those of the First King, and receives the same prostrations. He dis- 

 poses of about one-third of the state-revenue, but, except that the 

 First King consults him on matters of importance, he does not directly 

 interfere in the administration of the state-affairs. There have been 

 occasionally two kings of Siam in former times; .but they then 

 occupied distinct governments, the one being king of the Southern 

 Provinces and the other king of the Northern Provinces. 



The First King's concubines amount to hundreds, but he has gene- 

 rally one wife who ranks much higher than the others, and has a title 

 answering to that of Queen. She is selected from the princesses of 

 the royal line, and has a separate palace, and a body of attendants 

 specially devoted to her service. The last Queen was born December 

 21, 1834, was crowned January 2, 1852, and died October 10, 1852. 

 The First King had twelve children before he was king, and has had 

 as many or more since. The Second King has had about twenty 

 children, seven of whom are by one favourite wife. 



(The Kingdom and People of Siam, with a Narrative of the Mission 

 to that Country in 1855, by Sir John Bowriug, F.R.S., Her Majesty's 

 Plenipotentiary in China, 2 vols. 8vo, 1857.) 



SIBTHORP, JOHN, the youngest soil of Dr. Humphrey Sibthorp, 

 professor of botany at Oxford, was born in that city October 28, 1758. 

 He took his master's degree in 1780, and afterwards obtained a 

 Radcliffe travelling fellowship. In 1783 he took the degree of M.B. ; 

 and, leaving Oxford for a time, pursued his medical studies at Edin- 

 burgh. He next visited France and Switzerland, and made some 

 interesting botanical discoveries at Montpellier, which he communi- 

 cated to the Academy of Sciences in that city. 



In 1784 he returned to England, and having taken the degree of 

 Doctor of Medicine, was appointed to succeed his father, who had 

 resigned the professorship of botany. Part of the same year was spent 

 at Gottingen, where he formed the plan of his voyage to Greece, 

 which soon after he executed. His object being to study the botany 

 of that country, which had been so little investigated by the moderns, 

 he engaged at Vienna Mr. Bauer, an excellent draughtsman, with 

 whom he set out on his expedition, in March, 1786. In the autumn 

 of that year he visited Naples and Crete, and wintered at Constanti- 

 nople. In the spring of 1787 he visited Cyprus and other Greek 

 islands, and touched at the coast of Asia Minor. In June 1787, he 

 made some stay at Athens, in order to recover his health, which had 

 been much impaired by the heat of the weather and by confinement 

 on ship-board. From that city he made excursions to various parts 

 of Greece; and embarking at Batras on Sept. 24, 1787, reached Eng- 

 land, after a tempestuous voyage, during the first week in December. 



He now enjoyed some years of learned leisure, engaged in the duties 

 of his professorship, and in superintending the labours of his draughts- 

 man. He was one of the first members of the Linnaean Society, and 

 became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1789. His reputation gained 

 him an increase of his stipend, with the title of Regius professor, 

 which was conferred on him in 1793. But nothing could deter him 

 from attempting to accomplish his purpose of forming a complete 

 Flora of Greece. Accordingly, in March, 1794, he set out on his second 

 journey to that country. He now examined the Troad, paid a second 

 visit to Mount Athos, and spent two months at Athens. He passed 

 the winter of 1794 at Zante, where an apothecary furnished him with 

 a complete Herbarium of the island. In February 1795, he left Zante 

 for the Morea, where he remained for two months, and returned to 

 Zante at the end of April. He here embarked on board a vessel 

 bound for Otranto. The voyage, which is usually accomplished in 

 five days, occupied more than three weeks : and the inclemency of the 

 weather to which Dr. Sibthorp was exposed hastened the progress of 

 a consumption, of which he had before experienced the symptoms. 

 In the autumn of 1795 he reached England : his health now grew 

 rapidly worse ; and on February 8, 1796, he died at Bath, in the thirty- 

 eighth year of his age. 



Of the value and extent of Dr. Sibthorp's labours, some notion may 

 be formed from the fact that the number of species collected from his 

 manuscripts and specimens amounts to three thousand. Unhappily, 

 he lived to finish only one work, a ' Flora Oxoniensis,' published in 

 1794. In his will he bequeathed to the University of Oxford an estate 

 of 200?. a year, for the purpose of publishing his ' Flora Grseca,' in ten 

 folio volumes, with a hundred plates in each ; and a prodrornus of the 

 work, without plates. [DIOSCORIDES.] 



SICARD, ROCH AMBROSE CUCURRON, was born at Fousseret, 



