FORSTER. 
more of being superintendant of his exten- 
sive property in America, but this he de- 
clined, and accepted the place of teacher 
of the french, German, and natural history, 
in the academy of Warrington. This place, 
however, he left soon after, and returned to 
London, where he resided in very confined 
circumstances till the year 1772, when he 
was engaged to go out as naturalist with 
Captain Cook, who was then ready to pro- 
ceed on his second voyage round the world. 
Forster, at this time, was forty-three years 
of age, and was accompanied by his son 
George, then seventeen. 
He returned to England in the year 
1775, and soon after the University of Ox- 
ford conferred upon him the degree of Doc- 
tor of Laws. After his return, he publish- 
ed, conjointly with his son, a botanical 
work in Latin, containing the characters of 
a number of new genera of plants, which 
had been discovered by them in the course 
of their circumnavigation. 
An account of the voyage having been 
published in English and German by young 
Forster, in which the father was supposed 
to have had a considerable share, though 
he had entered into an engagement not to 
publish any thing separately from the au- 
thorized narrative, they not only incurred 
the displeasure of government, but gave of- 
fence to the principal friends by whom 
they had been patronised. This work 
abounded with reflections injurious to the 
government in whose service they had 
been, and unfavourable to the navigators 
who had conducted the expedition. They 
were therefore treated with so much cool- 
ness that they both determined to quit Eng- 
land. 
Fortunately for Forster, after struggling 
some time with poverty and misfortunes in 
London, he was invited to Halle, in 1780, 
to be professor of natural history ; he was 
also appointed inspector of the botanical 
garden; and as this office was connected 
with the faculty of medicine, he next year 
got the degree of Doctor of Medicine. 
The loss of his son George, who died at 
an early period of life, made a deep impres- 
sion on Forster, whose health was already 
in a declining state ; and in the spring of 
the year 1793, his case was so desperate, 
that he expressed himself as a dying man 
in ‘a letter to his friend Harsten, dated 
Halle, April 14. He did not long survive 
this letter, dying on the 9th of December, 
1798, at the age of sixty-nine years and 
some 'months. 
Forster is represented as a man of highly 
irritable and quarrelsome disposition, of 
which he is said to have given several in- 
stances during his voyage rpund the world ; 
and which, added to a total want of pru- 
dence in common affairs, involved him, not- 
withstanding his talents, in perpetual diffi- 
culties. 
The following character of him, by his 
friend the celebrated Kurt Sprengel, of 
Halle, exhibits him in a more favourable 
point of view : “ To a knowledge of books, 
in all branches of science, seldom to be met 
with, he joined an uncommon fund of prac- 
tical observations, of which he well knew 
how to avail himself In natural history, 
in geography, both physical and moral, and 
in universal history, he was acquainted with 
a vast number of facts, of which he who 
draws his information from works only, has 
not even a distant idea. This assertion is 
proved in the most striking manner by his 
‘ Observations made in a Voyage round the 
World.’ Of this book it may be said, that 
no traveller ever gathered so rich a trea- 
sure on his tour. What person of any edu- 
cation can read and study this work, which 
is unparalleled in its kind, without discover- 
ing in it that species of instructive and 
pleasing information which most interests 
man, as such ? The uncommon pains which 
Forster took in his literary compositions, 
and his conscientious accuracy in historical 
disquisitions, are best evinced by his ‘ His- 
tory of Voyages and Discoveries in the 
North,’ and likewise by his excellent archae- 
ological dissertation ‘ On the Byssus of- the 
Ancients.’ Researches such as these were 
his favourite employment, in which he was 
greatly assisted by his intimate acquaintance 
with the classics. Forster had a predilec- 
tion for the sublime in natural history, and 
aimed at general views, rather than detail. 
His favourite author therefore was Buffon, 
whom he used to recommend as a pattern 
of style, especially in his ‘ Epoques de la. 
Nature,’ his * Description of the Horse, Ca- 
mel, See.’ He had enjoyed the friendship 
of that distinguished naturalist, and he like- 
wise kept up an uninterrupted epistolary 
intercourse with Linnaeus, till the death of 
the latter. Without being a stickler- fee 
the forms and ceremonies of any particular 
persuasion, he adored the Eternal Author 
of All, who exists in the great temple na- 
tnre, and venerated his wisdom and good- 
ness with an ardour and a heart-felt' convic- 
tion that, in his opinion, alone constituted the 
criterion of true religion. He bald, in utter 
