H 



TIIUMMEL, MORITZ AUGUST VON, 



THUNBERG, CARL FETTER. 



church of the Jesuits at Bruges, wero considered two of hie beet altar- 

 pieces. While at Paris he painted tweuty-four pictures of the Life of 

 St. John of Matba in the church of the Mathurins, which he himself 

 etched on copper in 1633 ; the pictures have since been painted over. 

 Van Thulden'b etchings are numerous, and in a masterly style : he 

 published a set of fifty-eight plates from the paintings of Nicold 

 Abati at Fontainebleau, after the designs of Priraaticcio, which are 

 f reatly valued, for as the paintings were destroyed in 1738, they arc 

 nil that remaius of the original designs. They have been copied 

 several times : the original set appeared under the following title : 

 ' LesTravaux d'Ulysse, dcsseignez par le Sieur de Saiuct-Martin, de la 

 fa^-on qu'ils BO voyent dans la Maison Hoy ale de Fontainebleau, peint 

 par lo Sieur Nicolaa, et grave's au cuivre par Theodore van Thulden, 

 avcc lo suject et 1'explication morale de chaquo figure.' He etched 

 also forty-two plates after Rubens, of the entrance of Ferdinand the 

 Cardinal-Infant into Antwerp : ' Pompa introitus Ferdinandi,' &c. The 

 eight plates of the History of the Prodigal Son, to which he put 

 Rubens' name, are considered to be from his own designs ; they are 

 entitled, ' De verlooren Soon, door P. P. Rubens. Th. Van Thulden 

 i'ec.' Van Thulden died in his native place, Bois-le-Duc, in 1676. 



THttMMEL, MORITZ AUGUST VON, a German writer who was 

 greatly admired by his contemporaries, and who still continues to hold 

 a high literary rank with his own countrymen. He was born at 

 Schonfeld, near Leipzig, May 27th 1738, where his father possessed 

 considerable property, but lost much of it by the plundering of the 

 Prussian troops in Saxony, 1745. Moritz, who was the second son of 

 a family of nineteen, was sent to the university of Leipzig in 1756. 

 There he found in Gellert not only an instructor, but a friend ; and 

 he also formed an acquaintance with Weisse, Rabener, von Kleist, &c., 

 and, among others, with an old advocate named Balz, who at his 

 death, in 1776, left him the whole of his fortune, 24,000 dollars. This 

 accession of wealth enabled Moritz to give up the places he held under 

 Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg. first as Kammer-junker, and, from 1768, 

 as privy councillor and minister, and to retire in 1783 to Sonneborn, 

 an estate of his wife, at which place and at Gotha he continued chiefly 

 to reside until his death, which happened while he was on a visit at 

 Coburg, October 26th 1817. Thummel's literary reputation was 

 established by his ' Wilhelmine,' a ' comic poem in prose,' first pub- 

 lished in 1764. This short production, for it is in only five cantos or 

 chapters, was received as something altogether new in German litera- 

 ture, and as a masterpiece of polished humour and playful satire. It 

 was translated not only into French, but Dutch, Italian, and Russian; 

 and it has been reprinted entire in Wolff's ' Encyclopadie ' (1842). 

 His poetical tale, ' Die Inoculation der Liebe,' 1771, and other pieces 

 iu verse, did not add much to his fame ; but his last and longest work 

 ' Ileise in den Mittaglichen Provinzen von Frankreich ' (Travels in the 

 Southern Provinces of France), in 9 vols., 1799-1805, is also his literary 

 chef-d'oeuvre. Instead of being, as its title would import, the mere 

 record of his tours in that country, it is, like Sterne's ' Sentimental 

 Journey,' to a great extent, a work of fiction, interspersed with frag- 

 ments in verse, which breathe more of poetry than his other produc- 

 tions of that kind. It abounds with satiric humour and pleasantry, 

 with witty and shrewd observations, and shows the author to have been 

 an accomplished man of the world, intimately acquainted with human 

 nature. That it is a work of no ordinary merit and pretension may 

 be supposed from the notice it has obtained from Schiller, in his essay 

 ' Ueber Naive und Sentimentalische Dichtung;' who, if he praises it 

 with greater reserve than other critics, admits that, as a work of 

 amusement, it is one of a superior kind, and will as such continue to 

 enjoy the character it has obtained. A portrait of Thummel, after 

 Oeser, is prefixed to the 6th volume of the 'Neue Bibliothek der 

 Schonen Wissenschaften,' a complete edition of his works, in six 

 volumes. 



THUNBERG, CARL FETTER, an eminent Swedish traveller and 

 botanist, and professor of natural history in the University of Upsal, 

 was born on the llth of November 1743, at Jonkoping in Sweden, 

 where his father was a clergyman. He was early sent to the Univer- 

 sity of Upsal for the purpose of studying medicine, and became a 

 pupil of the great Linnaeus. Under his instruction he acquired that 

 taste for natural history which BO remarkably distinguished the school 

 of Linnaeus, and which has given to the world so many famous natu- 

 ralists. Having completed his course of study, he graduated in 1770, 

 and was honoured by having bestowed upon him the Kohrean 

 pension for the space of three years. Although the sum was small, 

 about fifteen pounds per annum, he determined to use it for the pur- 

 poses of improvement, and accordingly left Upsal for the purpose of 

 visiting Paris and the universities of Holland. Whilst in Amsterdam 

 he became acquainted with the botanists and florists of that city, and 

 they suggested to him the desirableness of some person visiting Japan 

 for the purpose of exploring its vegetable treasures. Thunberg imme- 

 diately offered his services, and a situation as surgeon to one of the 

 Dutch East India Company's vessels having been obtained for him, he 

 left Amsterdam for Japan in the year 1771. He landed at the Cape 

 of Good Hope for the purpose of learning amongst the Dutch settlers 

 there the Dutch language, which is the only European language 

 spoken extensively in Japan, and also in the hope of adding to his 

 knowledge of natural objects by researches in Africa. Here he made 

 several excursions into the interior, visiting various of the native tribes, 



and after having remained three winters at the Cape, where he col- 

 lected much valuable information, he set sail in 1773 for Java and the 

 Japan Isles. He remained in these islands five years, making large 

 collections of the plants of these countries, as well as observations on 

 the habits, manners, and language of their inhabitants. His ability to 

 labour however during his residence both in Africa and Asia, was 

 very much diminished by a frightful accident which he met with on 

 first leaving Holland. The keeper of the stores in the ship, having 

 inadvertently given out white lead instead of flour, it was mixed with 

 flour and used for making pancakes, of which the whole crew partook. 

 All were ill, and many suffered severely at the time, but none was so 

 bad as Thunberg ; he only gradually recovered his health, and through 

 his long life always laboured under the debility and derangement his 

 system had thus received. He returned to his native country in 

 1779, making first a short stay in England. Here he formed the 

 acquaintance of Sir Joseph Banks, Dryander, and Solander, and 

 availed himself of the extensive collection of plants from all parts of 

 the world, and valuable library of Sir Joseph, for the purpose of 

 adding to his botanical knowledge. During his absence he had been 

 made demonstrator of botany at Upsal in 1777, and iu 1784 was 

 installed in the chair of the great Linmcus as professor of botany. 

 In 1785 he was made a knight of the order of Waea, and in 1815 

 commander of the same order. 



On gaining his home, Thunberg immediately commenced arranging 

 the vast mass of materials he had collected in bis travels for the pur- 

 pose of publication. His first important work was a description of 

 the Japanese plants, which was published at Leipzig in 1784, with 

 the title 'Flora Japonica, sistens Plantas Insularum Japonicarum, 

 secundum Sjstema Sexuale emendatum,' 8vo, and illustrated with 

 thirty-nine engravings. In this work a great number of new plants 

 were described and arranged according to the Linruean system, in 

 which he ventured to dispense with the three classes called Moncecia, 

 Dioccia, and Polygamia. He subsequently published some botanical 

 observations on this ' Flora,' in the second volume of the ' Transac- 

 tions ' of the Linnsean Society. 



In 1788 he commenced the publication of an account of his travels, 

 under the title, 'Resa uti Europa, Africa, Asia, forattad iiren 1770-79,' 

 8vo, Upsal. This work was completed in four volumes, and contains 

 a full account of his eventful life, from the time he started from Upsal 

 with his Kohrean pension, till he returned to the same place laden 

 with treasures from a hitherto unexplored region. In these volumes 

 he has taken great pains to collect all possible information on the 

 medicinal and dietetic properties of plants in the countries he visited, 

 as well as their uses in rural and domestic economy. He recommends 

 several new plants for cultivation in Europe as substitutes for those 

 in present use. This work also gives a simple and pleasing account of 

 the original natives of the places in which ho sojourned, as well as of 

 the European settlers. It has been translated into German by Gros- 

 kund, and published at Berlin in 1792. It appeared in English at 

 London in 1793, and in French at Paris in 1796. 



His next work was a 'Prodromus Plantarum Capensium, Annis 

 1772-75 collectarum,' Upsalia?, 1794-1800 : being an account of the 

 plants he had collected at the Cape. From 1794 to 1805 he pub- 

 lished in folio, under the title ' Icones Plantarum Japouicarum,' 

 Upsalise, a series of plates illustrative of the botany of the Japan 

 Isles. These were followed by the ' Flora Capensis,' 8vo, Upsaliaj, 

 1807-13. In this work the most complete view of the botany of the 

 Cape of Good Hope is given that has hitherto been published. In 

 1807, in conjunction with Billberg, he published the 'Plantarum 

 Brasiliensium Decas Prima,' 4to, Upsalise. In this work the plants 

 collected by Freireiss and Sauerlander, in the province of Minas 

 Geraes in Brazil, are described ; but the subsequent parts were 

 published by other hands. 



Besides the above works, on which the reputation of Thunberg as a 

 traveller and a botanist mainly rests, he was the author of almost 

 countless memoirs and academical dissertations. The subjects of 

 these were chiefly those which his long residence in Africa and Asia 

 afforded. The majority of them are upon botanical topics; not a few 

 however are devoted to a consideration of zoological subjects. 

 Although botany was his primary object in his travels, he yet lost 

 no opportunity of obtaining a knowledge of the new animals he met 

 with, and several of his papers are descriptions of these. He pub- 

 lished several memoirs in the London 'Philosophical Transactions,' 

 and the ' Transactions ' of the Linmcan Society, also in the Trans- 

 actions of Russian, German, French, and Dutch scientific societies and 

 journals, and a much greater number in those of Sweden. The aca- 

 demical dissertations bearing his name, and presented at the University 

 of Upsal, are nearly 100 in number, and were published betweeu the 

 years 1789 and 1813. 



Thunberg was elected an honorary member of sixty-six learned 

 societies. He died at the advanced age of eighty-five, on the 8th of 

 August 1828. 



Retzius named a genus of plants in the natural order Acanthacece, 

 in honour of him, Thunbergia. The following genera of plants have 

 species named after him : Ixia, Isolepis, Cyperus, Imperata, Spatalla, 

 Convolvulus, Campanula, Gardenia, Atriplex, Hydrocotyle, llhus, Cras- 

 sula, Berberis, Erica, Passcrina, Thalictrum, Coccidu*, Equisetum, 

 Hypnum, Fissidens, Cystoseira, Qyalecta, and Endocarpon. Of insects, 



