Fisher Ames has remarked, that it is as difficult to compare great
men, as great rivers. He might have found a happier illustration; but
the meaning is obvious, that whilst distinguished men bear to each
other some points of resemblance, they are remarkable for points of
discrepancy. Johnson traced lines of analogy and contrast between
Dryden and Pope, whilst Playfair did the same between Newton and
Leibnitz. Plutarch led the way in this kind of writing, but his
parallels were occasionally more fanciful than true.
In many things antiquity has excelled; but in natural science and in
works of fiction, the palm is due to modern times. Cuvier and Pliny,
could not be impartially measured, without giving to the former a
decided advantage. The light which fell on the latter was dim, in
comparison with that by which the philosopher of France was guided in
his researches. Persian monarchs might formerly have been amused by
the tales which adulation told in their presence; but Sir Walter Scott
has redeemed fiction from many of the purposes to which it has been
applied.
Among the scores of men who have devoted their talents to natural
science, Linnæus and Wilson are not the least conspicuous, and they
bore a likeness to each other in the obscurity of their origin. The
first was the son of a Pastor, who lived in a village of Sweden, and
partly sustained his family by cultivating a few beds of earth. The
manse (to use a word familiar in Scotland,) has more than once been
the birth place of genius, as Thomson, Armstrong, and the translator
of the Lusiad could have testified. The latter was descended of a line
of peasantry--but they both evinced that science has palms to bestow,
on all by whom they shall be nobly attempted and fairly won, whilst
she leaves it to kings to adorn the undeserving with hereditary
titles.
They both appear to have lived for a time out of their element, for
the one had well nigh been sent to the awl, whilst the other was a
weaver in Paisley. But the taste of Linnæus was early formed, whilst
that of the ornithologist was not developed, until comparatively late
in life. The biography of the Swede is full of incidents to show that
his passion for plants took its rise in infancy, and grew with his
years. The circumstances of his father being unexpectedly improved,
the new residence of the Pastor was embellished by a garden, and
though gardening had been his business, it now became an amusement.
When the parent was employed among his plants, the son was seen by his
side, drawing from paternal instruction, the elements of that science
in which he was destined to excel. But the Ornithologist betrayed no
early predilection for the branch of knowledge to which he
subsequently became devoted. It was not until he had expatriated
himself, and killed for his own sustenance, one of our forest
birds--that the high resolve was formed of consecrating himself to the
investigation of the feathered tribes. There is something striking in
this event. An exile from Scotland, driven by poverty to seek an
asylum on our shores, not knowing to what destiny his steps were
tending, is reminded by an incident of the claims of science on his
personal services. He had seen the birds of his own country, which
Grahame had celebrated in one of his poems; but it is probable that
the dishevelled plumage of the one alluded to deeply affected his
mind. To an accident we owe a series of galvanic experiments, and the
discovery of the law of gravitation; and if this be so, it is not to
be wondered at, that to an event seemingly unimportant we should owe
the enlargement of Ornithology.
Linnæus and Wilson made but small attainments in any other branch than
the department in which each of them became eminent. The first was
conspicuous in his medical profession, but this was the result of
adventitious circumstances. He gained some acquaintance with
Mineralogy, and even explored the province of Dalecarlia as a kind of
Peripatetic Lecturer--but this branch belongs to Natural Science. He
was sent in youth to an academy, with a view to prepare for the sacred
office; but his habits, though marked by innocence, unfitted him for
its duties. He appears to have been deficient in what Phrenologists
call the organ of language, and especially in the acquisition of the
modern tongues; but whilst others were becoming familiar with words,
he was ruminating by Lake Helga, and stripping Lake Wetter of its
plants, that the tribes of the North might learn to speak in flowers,
and thereby resemble in traits of sentiment and imagination the
caravans of the East. The attainments of the Ornithologist were from
his circumstances necessarily limited. Confusion is generally
consequent on education which has not discipline for its basis. Before
Wilson left Scotland he attempted poetry, and some of his productions
were attributed to Burns; but this kind of mistake is frequently made
by the partiality of friends. {75} The poetical productions of the
Ornithologist are not entitled to much consideration; at least his
temperament in this respect was more vividly displayed in action than
in verbal expression. Both possessed remarkable powers of analysis,
and in each the elements of taste were mingled in such a way as to
turn the scale in favor of science rather than of imagination. The
genius of both moved in a limited but perfect circle. That filled by
the Botanist was stocked with herbs and the foliage of the Zones,
surmounted by the golden flowers of the Line--and all held together by
a diamond chain, whilst the choice assemblage was enlivened by the hum
of the insect tribes. The other filled by the Ornithologist, was
supplied from the air, and he crowded within its circumference birds
of emerald and ruby grain, in the centre of which the Eagle was
poised, whilst his ear was regaled by the song chanted at intervals
from the curling vines of the Tropics, or the volume of melody from
the woodlands of his adopted country. Each of them eventually
insulated his mind to his vocation, and this is better than dispersing
mental power over various pursuits. They thus reduced their genius to
something of an integral kind, without the appendage of fractional
parts.
Linnæus was not without decided advantages in those opportunities
which foster intellect, promote emulation, and give impulse to genius.
Hannah More has remarked that the best kind of education is drawn from
the conversation of well-informed parents. It has been stated that the
Botanist enjoyed this privilege in an eminent degree. His father took
unusual pains to mature his mind, and though subjected to occasional
disappointments, he met with friends even in Professors, who had
sagacity to discern the sphere which he was one day to occupy. He
found his way to the University of Lund, and subsequently to the one
at Upsal, where lectures were delivered on his favorite science, and
botanical gardens were open to his inspection. We are at a loss to
imagine in what circumstances more delightful a scholar could have
been placed, than those in which Linnæus was placed when he took up
his abode at Hartecamp, the villa of his friend Cliffort, near
Haerlem. Here he found books of science, and works of taste, exotic
shrubs mingled with indigenous plants, museums filled with gems from
the mines of Golconda, and cabinets full of shells culled from the
grottos of the sea, and from the beaches of distant oceans. But truth
constrains us to place the Ornithologist in the back ground of this
picture. We find him struggling with penury from the beginning, and
even traversing the moors of Scotland in search of a precarious
subsistence. No university opened to him its ancient gates and
cloistered cells. No man of wealth placed aviaries under his
superintendence, and decoyed for his use speckled birds into the
captivity of some sylvan Paradise. After his removal to this country
he met with friends, but like himself, they were for the most part
penniless. Among them, Joseph Dennie is worthy of mention--a man
prompt to encourage every good design. He was at that time editor of
the Port Folio, and through the medium of that work he served the
cause of Ornithology. Dennie was the pioneer of literature in this
country, and he is to be measured by the quality rather than the
quantity of his works. He wrote no brilliant poems or ingenious tales,
no dissertations in which philosophy led the way, and no historical
works in which imposing events were arranged for the eye of posterity;
but his Lay Preacher will always bear witness to the graceful
structure of his mind.
Linnæus and Wilson both encountered hardships in the attainment of
their purpose. Scotland treated the one, and Sweden the other, with
unfeeling neglect; but the Botanist seems to have suffered most from
the jealousy of rival Professors. It is singular that envy should so
often disturb the quiet of men devoted to liberal pursuits; but Newton
permitted some of his works to lie by him unpublished for years,
because he dreaded critical attacks; and the quarrels of Addison and
Pope were the subject of merriment to the people of their day. The
toils of the Botanist introduced him to the perils of the Lulean
desart. This rugged district was faithfully explored by the Swede; and
in performing this journey, he drew subsistence from the milk of the
reindeer, reconnoitered the hills and dells of Lapland, adventurously
gathered moss from the brow of the precipice, and filled his herbarium
with plants that rose among the rocks of the waterfall. He descended
dangerous rivers in his boat; but this was the only journey in which
Linnæus appears to have suffered much personal inconvenience. His
subsequent tours through France, Germany and England, were excursions
of pleasure, on which he went to enjoy the triumphs awarded to genius.
But rugged as was the Lapland desart, the Ornithologist traversed
desarts more extensive. Though poverty forbade the attempt to explore
our forests, he disregarded its monitions, and we find him passing
through the vale of Wyoming, and encircling the Lakes that indent the
interior of New York, and then standing by those inland seas that roll
on our northern borders. He descended the Ohio in his lonely skiff--he
searched the islands which picture its waves--he paused in sight of
smoke curling from the wigwam--he drew the chain of science around the
copse, and slept in the green saloons of our wilderness. He was a
Stoic of the woods as to personal suffering, but a Platonist at the
same time in the mellow sensibilities of his nature.
They were both instructors of youth, but under circumstances widely
different. The one was a preceptor of youth in the sequestered nooks
of Pennsylvania; the other became the dignified lecturer from beneath
a canopy spread over him by regal munificence. The one taught the
elements of Education--the other enlarged on the lore of Science. As
an instructor, Linnæus was the more successful. He resembled in some
measure the Greek philosophers who taught in the suburbs of Athens,
and he made Hammarby a kind of Swedish Lyceum. He possessed a
remarkable talent for waking into action the latent enthusiasm of his
pupils. What custom could have been more inspiring than the one he
introduced at Upsal, of dividing his pupils into bands, and enjoining
it on the leader of each to sound a horn when a plant should be
discovered, never before seen by the fervid eye of science. This
enthusiasm accounts for the fact, that his pupils subsequently
explored so many countries, and investigated their floral kingdoms,
whilst one of them accompanied Sir Joseph Banks round the world, and
sounded his bugle among the islands of the Pacific.
{76} They both enlarged the limits of Science. Before the time of the
Swedish philosopher, Botanists had arisen in different countries; and
from the earliest periods, studies based on the objects of nature must
have drawn attention both for ornament and use. Lord Bacon, from the
elevation which he occupied above the rest of his species, looked far
into the wonders of Natural History; but Linnæus took entire
possession of the green and flowery land, and led in the tribes of men
to enjoy its fragrance and pluck its fruit. The poetical affections
have from the infancy of time been associated with vernal buds and
flowers. Poetry, when it assumes the form of language, is the melody
which the mind makes when the imagination is excited by objects in the
frame-work of nature, or by events susceptible of picturesque
representation. In the floral games men were acting from ideal
impulses, and they were doing the same through the ages of chivalry.
They thus furnished materials out of which Tasso reared his immortal
work. But it is one thing to look at objects as they sparkle through
the medium of the imagination, and another to open on the same objects
the eye of science. Many have celebrated the loves of the Shells who
have not understood Conchology, and Darwin understood Plants
scientifically without comprehending them poetically. But Linnæus
possessed astonishing invention, and he easily detected the errors of
ancient systems, and convinced mankind of the superiority of that
system which bore the seal of his own imperishable mind. In like
manner the Ornithologist did not strike out into ways entirely novel,
but he extended paths on which men had hitherto gone for the
acquisition of knowledge. He has greatly enlarged our views of the
history and habits of the feathered race. From the mountain's height,
as well as in the deepest recesses of the wilderness, he stretched out
his hand and clasped the blue and purple bird, that our intellectual
pleasures might be augmented.
Of these distinguished men, the success of Linnæus in life was by far
the more conspicuous. He eventually reached every desire which he
could at any time have cherished. His Professorship at Upsal yielded
him a revenue equivalent to his wants. He thrust forth from thence
pupils in successive companies; but distance did not diminish the
veneration in which they held his person. Foreign countries sent him
the symbols of admiration--literary associations vied with each other
in doing him honor--and kings bestowed on him the title of nobility.
But it is probable that the rural life of Tully and Pliny strongly
impressed his imagination, for his highest ambition was to possess a
villa. He purchased Hammarby, which, under his direction, became
stocked with the productions of every clime. Here he held a kind of
rural court, and, to use his own language, was happier than any
Eastern Sultan. Kings and nobles sent presents to his villa, whilst
pilgrim students detached for his use twigs from the Sabine farm, and
leaves from the tomb of Pausilippo. The Celtic flower and the Turkish
vine met in his green-house, and the bird marked by the hues of the
Tropics, found a home on his lawn. But there is a contrast to this in
the circumstances of the Ornithologist too painful to be distinctly
traced; and he was one of the few who have lived for that gratitude
which reaches its object only in the grave.
In that piety due from a creature to his Maker, Linnæus appears to
have surpassed the Ornithologist. The Swedish naturalist was
remarkable for his gratitude, and he often mentioned in glowing words
the way in which he had been led to results and discoveries so
important. He felt his dependence when buried in the solitude of the
desart--nor did he forget to rear an altar at Hammarby. But the
Ornithologist probably excelled him in some moral qualities, and among
them was disinterestedness. The love of money was a passion too strong
with Linnæus, and too feeble for his own comfort with Wilson--and
neither of them, in this particular, struck the _golden medium_. The
sensibility of the Ornithologist was likewise more refined than that
of the Botanist. Linnæus was buried in the Cathedral of Upsal, with a
pomp which kings alone could bestow; but Wilson was not indifferent to
the spot in which he should repose. In going into battle an Admiral
once thought of a tomb in Westminster Abbey--and Napoleon wished to
lie on the Seine, among the French people whom he had loved so well;
but the Ornithologist desired to be buried where the birds could find
access to his grave.
Each of these distinguished men created an æra in Natural History.
Some philosophers have associated their names with the heavenly
bodies, and we are reminded of them whenever we lift our thoughts to
the milky way, or to the planets as they turn in on their bright
pilgrimage to share the evening repose of our world. Of some we are
reminded by the balmy air, or by the insects which make it vocal; and
we call others to remembrance when we look on the Peruvian Lama, or
the stately Lion: but so long as the earth shall evolve its Plants,
the Swedish sage cannot be forgotten--and so long as the birds can
chant a note, the Druid of Ornithology shall not want a requiem.