709 



WILLDENOW, CARL LUDWIG. 



WILLEMS, JAN FRANS. 



710 



diseases amongst the ancients; the history of leprosy, and also of 

 lues. Dr. Willan was a man of retiring and studious habits, devotedly 

 fond of his profession. He had few connexions, and modest manners, 

 so that his course to practice was slow, although it was ample in the 

 end. He was much esteemed by his medical brethren, and beloved 

 by the poor, to whom he was ever kind and attentive. He was a 

 sound observer, and a good practical physician; and his classification 

 of the diseases of the skin must ever be regarded as a great step for 

 the advancement of the knowledge of the forms of disease. 



(Bateman, Memoir of Dr. Willan, in 32nd number of Edinburgh 

 Medical and Surgical Journal). 



WILLDENOW, CARL LUDWIG, a botanist, was born in 1765, at 

 Berlin, where his father was an apothecary. He received his early 

 education at Berlin, and studied medicine at Halle, whence he pro- 

 ceeded to Langensalza, for the purpose of studying chemistry in the 

 laboratory of Wiegleb. He took his degree of Doctor of Medicine at 

 Halle ; returned to his native city, and, having married, commenced 

 the practice of his profession. He early turned his attention to botany, 

 and before he had graduated he published his Prodromus of the 

 Berlin Flora, with the title ' Prodromus Florso Berolinensis,' Berlin, 

 8vo, 1787. On the occasion of his graduating at Halle he presented as 

 hia thesis a botanical work, which was entitled ' Tractatus de Achilleis 

 et Tanaceto,' Halle, Svo, 1789. Shortly after this he published his 

 ' Historia Amaranthorum,' at Zurich, illustrated with 12 plates. Nor 

 did he confine his natural history studies to plants. He took great 

 interest in zoology, and had collected in his museum many specimens 

 of rare animals; and in 1789 he published a catalogue of butterflies in 

 the Mark of Brandenburg, entitled ' Tabellariscb.es Verzeichniss der in 

 der Churmark Brandenburg einheimischen Schmetterlinge,' Berlin, Svo. 

 In 1790 he published a memoirjof Gleditsch the botanist, and in 1792 

 his elements of botany, with the title ' Grundriss der Kraiiter-Kunde,' 

 Berlin, Svo. This was one of the best elementary works on botany of 

 the day, and was extensively used throughout Germany as a class- 

 book. It was also translated into French and English, and in fact 

 became the model on which most of the subsequent introductions to 

 botany were written. He afterwards published a work of the same 

 nature in 180-4, entitled 'An Introduction to the Self-Study of Botany' 

 (' Anleitung zum Selbst-Studien der Botanik '), but this is an inferior 

 work to the first. In 1794 he published, in folio, a work on new and 

 rare plants, with the title ' Phytographia, seu Descriptio rariorum 

 minus cognitarum Plantarum,' Erlangen. This was followed, in 1796, 

 by a work on the trees and shrubs growing in the open air in the 

 Garden of Berlin, with some account of their culture. Of this work a 

 second edition appeared in 1811. 



The successive publication of these works had acquired for Will- 

 denow the reputation of a first-rate botanist, and obtained for him in 

 1798 the appointment to the cbair of Natural History at Berlin. He 

 was also appointed superintendent of the Botanic Garden at Berlin. 

 Previous to his appointment this garden had been much neglected, 

 but by his diligence it became the depository of some of the rarest 

 plants growing in Europe. Willdenow corresponded with most of the 

 botanists of his day, and from Klein he received plants from India; 

 from Humboldt and Bonpland, those of America; from Labillardiere 

 and Smith, those of New Holland ; and from Desfontaines, those of 

 Africa. It was thus that, instead of 1200 species he found growing in 

 the garden, he left 6000. He also collected a large herbarium, con- 

 sisting of above 20,000 species of plants. 



The great work of the life of Willdenow was his ' Species Plan- 

 tarum ' of Linnaeus. He commenced this work in 1797, and con- 

 tinued publishing it at intervals till 1810, when his health became too 

 enfeebled to enable him to go on. He proceeded as far as the first 

 part of the fifth volume, which contained descriptions of the species 

 of the natural order Filices. A second part of the fifth volume, 

 including the mosses, was published by Schwagricher in. 1830; and 

 Link, in 1824, published two parts of a sixth volume, including 

 the Fungi, Hyphomycetes, and Gymnomycetes. This work was the most 

 important one of its day for systematic botany, as it included descrip- 

 tions of all species that had been described since the first publication 

 of the ' Species Plantarum ' by Linnseus. The first volumes of the 

 book are not so well executed as the last, which is easily accounted for 

 when the different position in which the author was placed is con- 

 sidered. There are also many manifest errors in the references to 

 works, and in the quotation of synonyms, which diminish its value, 

 and which have produced some very severe criticisms. Every allow- 

 ance however should be made on account of the magnitude of the 

 work ; and, whatever might be its faults, there was nothing to supply 

 its place till the publication of the ' Prodromus ' of De Candolle, and 

 where this was incomplete, the aid of the 'Species Plantarum' of 

 Willdenow was still essential. The whole work is arranged according 

 to the Linnaean system. From 1803 to 1809 Willdenow published at 

 intervals descriptions with coloured plates of plants growing in the 

 Botanic Garden at Berlin, under the title 'Hortus Berolinensis,' 

 Berlin, folio. He also contributed many essays and papers to various 

 Journals and Transactions of societies. In 1811 Willdenow went with 

 his family to Paris for the purpose of studying and describing plants 

 in the collections there. He however was able to effect little, on 

 account of his health, and he returned to Berlin, where he died on the 

 10th of July 1812. 



WILLE, JEAN GEORGE, a distinguished engraver, was born at 

 Konigsberg, near Giesaen, in Hesse, November 5, 1715. He was 

 destined by his parents for trade, but from his earliest years he had a 

 passion for drawing and design, and having by his own efforts learnt 

 to engrave, he in his nineteenth year proceeded to Paris where he was 

 employed by Dalle" at a low salary. His improvement in his art was 

 very rapid, and he finally attained an almost unrivalled reputation as 

 an engraver of portraits and of figure pieces from the Dutch and 

 Flemish masters. Among his most celebrated prints are the portraits 

 of Marshal Saxe ; Massd de Boullongne ; Marigny, Count de Saint 

 Florentin, &c., and his genre engravings, such as ' The Knitter,' ' The 

 Reader,' ' An Old Woman of Normandy holding a Tulip,' Terburg'a 

 ' Satin Gown,' Schalken's ' Family Concert,' ' Wandering Musicians,' 

 and many others from the works of Gerard Douw, Mieris, Dietrich, 

 Terburg, and other masters of the Dutch school. Wille never left 

 Paris after he entered it, and came, though born in Germany, to be 

 generally regarded as a Frenchman. He was admitted a member of the 

 Acade'mie des Beaux- Arts, in 1761 ; was created a knight of the 

 legion of honour by Napoleon L, and died at Paris on the 8th of 

 August 1806. The engravings of Wille are correct in drawing, brilliant, 

 yet delicate and refined in effect, and convey with admirable precision 

 and feeling the character of the masters from whose works they are 

 executed. Among his pupils were Muller, Schmuzer, Bervic, and 

 others who have distinguished themselves in this profession. 



WILLEMS, JAN FRANS, the originator of what is called the 

 E'lemish movement ' for the revival of the cultivation of the Dutch 

 language in Belgium, was born at Bouchout, a village near Antwerp, 

 on the llth of March 1793. The French sans-culotte army, under 

 Dumouriez, was at that very time advancing to the siege of Antwerp ; 

 a party of his soldiers entered Bouchout on the night that Willems was 

 born, and on hearing the state of affairs politely withdrew from his 

 father's house, observing that the new comer would be the first French 

 citizen of the district, and little foreseeing how effective an opponent 

 he would prove to the influence of France in Flanders. The attach- 

 ment of Willems to the Flemish language first showed itself at the 

 town of Lierre, where he was sent from the age of twelve to fifteen, to 

 learn singing and playing on the organ, and where he was fortunate 

 enough to meet with a protector and educator in the person of Mr. 

 Bergmann, who, in the then cessation of public means of education in 

 Belgium acted as tutor to his own family, and allowed young Willems 

 to share their instructions in Latin and literature. Lierre was still in 

 possession of some of the ' Rederyk-Kamers,' or Chambers of Rhetoric, 

 the existence of which was one of the most familiar literary features of 

 olden Belgium, and they were in the habit of getting up theatrical 

 entertainments. " The Cecilian Society of the principal church, St. 

 Gummar's, where I every day sang or played the organ, being," says 

 Willems, in a history which he afterwards wrote of the Chambers of 

 Lierre, " in the mind to act some pieces for the benefit of the church, 

 this was the occasion of first bringing me on the stage, and I repre- 

 sented the angel Gabriel bringing the annunciation to the Virgin 

 Mary, in the piece entitled 'The Nativity and Youth of Jesus Christ.' 

 I remember that our manager, Mr. Van den Brande, churchwarden of 

 St. Gummar's, a very pious man, every evening before the curtain rose 

 made us kneel down on the stage, and read the Litany of Our Lady 

 that the performance might go off well. It was strange to see how all 

 the characters were mingled together on their knees, and how St. 

 Joseph and Our Lady (N.B., an Our Lady with a beard). Herod, the 

 three Kings, the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees, the angels and the 

 devils all joined in the responses, ' Pray for us, pray for us.' I shall 

 never forget it." The mysteries of the middle ages were thus, it will 

 be seen, flourishing in the 19th century in Belgium, as well as in some 

 more remote corners of Europe. 



When Willems was a boy of fourteen at Lierre he wrote a poetical 

 satire in Flemish on the authorities of Bouchout, who had arbitrarily 

 dismissed his father from the post of tax-collector. This and some 

 other proofs of talent led his patron Bergmann to advise his parents 

 not to bury him in the obscurity of his native village but send him to 

 Antwerp, where he was placed as clerk to a notary, and, in 1812, con- 

 tended victoriously against twenty-six competitors for the prize that 

 was offered for the best poem on the battle of Frie^dland and the peace 

 of Tilsit. An amateur theatre was his favourite recreation, and two 

 plays of his composition ' The Rich Antwerper ' and ' Quintin Matsys' 

 met with success both on the stage and in print. The uuion of 

 Belgium with Holland, which followed the overthrow of the French 

 dominion in both countries in 1814, naturally directed attention to the 

 fact that the so-called Flemish language and the language of Amster- 

 dam are in reality but very slightly differing dialects of one common 

 language which was at one time more cultivated in Flanders and at 

 another in Holland. Willems took the lead in reviving and making 

 permanent what it is very singular should ever have been overlooked, 

 or forgotten. A spirited poem by him 'Aen de Belgen' (To the 

 Belgians) published in 1818, exhorted his countrymen not to con- 

 tinue to abandon the language of their fathers, which was also the 

 language of Vondel and Bilderdyk. This poem, which produced a 

 strong sensation, was accompanied by a French translation, which it 

 may be remarked was not a very faithful one. It formed the prelude 

 to Willems's ' Dissertation on the Dutch Language and Literature in 

 connection with the Southern Provinces of the Netherlands ' (Ver- 



