14 



BOTANY. 



History, treasure which he set most value on, to Paris, the 

 1 natural place of resort to genius and science ; and 

 venturing, on his arrival, to introduce himself to Cres- 

 centius Fagon, at that time physician to the queen, 

 and professor of botany, he soon contrived to re- 

 commend himself so much to his notice that he was 

 placed, in the course of the year 1683, over the royal 

 garden as his substitute ; and proceeded from that 

 moment to discharge the duties of his office with 

 unbounded applause. 



Having at length established his reputation, and 

 shewn, by a display of superior ability, that he was 

 capable of not merely justifying, but of going far 

 beyond the opinion which had been formed of him ; 

 he was sent, in 1688, by the recommendation -of his 

 patron, at the king's expence, into Spain and Portu- 

 gal, and afterwards into Great Britain and Holland, 

 on journies of discovery. And in these, his success 

 was so great, that, besides augmenting his own know- 

 ledge very much, he was enabled, on his return, to 

 enrich the garden with a large and valuable accession 

 of plants. 



In 1692, he had the honour of being elected a 

 member of the Academy of Sciences ; and his fame 

 continuing in the mean time to spread in consequence 

 of the publications which we are to notice hereafter, 

 he was, in 1693, admitted unanimously, and with 

 the most gratifying tokens of respect and approba- 

 tion, into the faculty of physicians at Paris. 



Two years afterwards, he set out from the east 

 on a voyage, which, like his preceding travels, was 

 undertaken by the order and at the expence of 

 Louis XIV. ; for in the dedication of the Latin 

 version of his Institutions to that monarch, a little 

 before he set out, we find him saying beautifully 

 enough, but with some mixture of flattery, " Jussu 

 hoc Alpium juga, Pyrenaearum saltus, Hispaniae re- 

 cessas, ericata Lusitanias, Britannise colles, et Belgii 

 prata peragravi ; plantarum genera formasque in- 

 spexi ; vires et potestates exploravi, ne quid, quod 

 salutiferum homini foret, posset te regnante prscteriri. 

 Et quoniam tot peregrinationibus meis, fortuna tua 

 non unprosperos exitus dedit, alias mihi subinde, et 

 multo remotiores infungis, ut nulla pars terrarum 

 cxpers sit tuns singularis in populos tibi commissos 

 curs, atque Gallorum vel saluti, vel glorias Orientalis 

 etiam plaga deserviat." In this scientific mission he 

 was accompanied by Dr Andrew Gundelsheimer, a 

 very zealous German botanist, whose herbarium is 

 still preserved at Berlin, where he founded the pub- 

 lic garden ; and by a French draughtsman of great 

 eminence, named Claude Aubriel : and, so extraor- 

 dinary was the diligence which he used during the 

 two years he was with them in the east, that he not 

 only traversed the Grecian Archipelago and Thrace, 

 but the shores of the Euxine Sea and the northern 

 districts of the Lesser Asia, as far as the confines of 

 the Persian empire ; and then returned by a different 

 route through Galatia, Mysia, and Lydia, to Smyr- 

 na ; and from thence, home : being only prevented 

 from visiting Egypt and Syria by what he had heard 

 of the prevalence of the plague in them. 



On his settling again at Paris, he was raised to 

 the dignity of knighthood ; both as a reward of past 

 merit, and an incentive to future exertion ; and 



being at the same time honoured with an ample fame, History, 

 the correspondence of the most eminent among his ''*"' ' ' 

 contemporaries, as well as placed in a favourable 

 situation, he set himself with becoming zeal, to ar- 

 range the vast stock of materials which he had col- 

 lected, and turn his knowledge to some good ac- 

 count. 



Unfortunately, however, while he was thus enjoy- 

 ing the most flattering prospect of still greater ho- 

 nour and usefulness ; and had even gone far, we are 

 told, in preparing some valuable works for the press, 

 an accident happened which cut short the period of 

 his life, and deprived the world of what they had a 

 right to expect from his well proven abilities : For, 

 as he was one day passing along a narrow street in 

 Paris, he was thrown against a wall by the impulse 

 of a waggon, or some other carriage in rapid motion, 

 with such violence, that blood immediately gushed 

 from his mouth ; and the contusion having at length 

 terminated in consumption, he was carried off by 

 it in the course of a few months after, in the year 

 1708. 



Such were the general features in the life of 

 Tournefort, as a traveller and practical botanist ; 

 but in order to our having an adequate idea of his 

 merit, we must farther attend to him, for a little, as 

 a writer. His premature death, as we have just now 

 remarked, prevented him from laying the valuable 

 result of his researches before the world to the x- 

 tent which he had designed ; so that, with the ex- 

 ception of some papers in the Memoirs of the Aca- 

 demy of Sciences, and his Voyage to the Levant, 

 which is a miscellaneous publication, we have only 

 two works of his which are entitled to notice ; the 

 Histoire des Plantes, qiii naissent aux environs de 

 Paris, avec leur usage dans la Medicine, which was 

 published in 1698 ; and his Institutions, which ap- 

 peared first in French, in 1697, under the title of 

 Llemens de Dolanique, on Mcthode pour connoitre 

 les Plantes, and afterwards in Latin, in 1700, under 

 the title of Institutiones ret Herbaria;. 



With respect to the first, we need only observe, 

 that though it contains descriptions of several new- 

 plants, and is otherwise characterised by the author's 

 usual ability and accuracy, it was chiefly designed 

 to facilitate the study of botany among those who 

 attended his lectures. The second, however, which 

 requires to be more particularly noticed, as being' 

 the work which established his fame, and procured 

 him long a sort of empire over this department of 

 science, was published with the view of introducing 

 no less than a completely new and universal plan of 

 arrangement and reform. 



The method which he adopted in it, and accord- Tourne- 

 ing to which he distributed all the species of plants fort's ar- 

 which were then known, together with part of his rangemeq;. 

 own discoveries, had the form of the corolla for its 

 principle. It admitted a distinction between trees 

 taken in connection with shrubs, on the one hand, 

 and undershrubs and herbs on the other ; and com- 

 prehended 22 classes, which were as follows. 



Herbce et Sitffi-utices. 



1. Floribus monopetalis campaniformibus. 



2. . . . infundibuliformibus et rotatis. 



