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Glasgow. On this event, the duchess of Hamilton took him under her patronage, and recommended to him the profession of the law, but his inclination for botany and the study of medicine superseded all other schemes; and from the year 1716, he entirely devoted himself to medi cine. In that year he went over to Leyden, and studied under Boerhaave for three years; and having here formed an acquaintance with the celebrated Dr. Alexander Monro, the first of that name, on their return they projected the revival of medical lectures and studies at Edinburgh. For this purpose they associated themselves with Drs. Rutherford, Sinclair, and Plummer, and laid the foundation of that high character, as a medical school, which Edinburgh has so long enjoyed. Dr. Alston's department was botany and the materia medica, which he continued to teach with unwearied assiduity until his death, Nov. 22, 1760, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.

In 1740, he published for the use of his pupils: 1. "Index Plantarum præcipue officinalium, quæ in horto medico Edinburgensi, studiosis demonstrantur," 8vo. 2. "Index Medicamentorum simplicium triplex," 1752, 8vo. 3. "Tirocinium Botanicum Edinburgense," 1753; his principal work, containing a republication of his "Index" with the "Fundamenta Botanica" of Linnæus; in this, however, he made an unavailing attempt to overthrow Linnæus's system; doubtless from a fond attachment to his early instructors, Tournefort, Ray, and Boerhaave. Besides these, he published in the Edinburgh medical essays, three papers on Tin as an anthelmintic, on Opium, and on a case of extravasated blood in the pericardium; and separately in 1752, 1754, and 1757, a "Dissertation on Quick-lime and Lime-water." His "Lectures on the Materia Medica" were published after his death by Dr. Hope, 2 vols. 4to, 1770, which did not contribute much to his fame, being, as Dr. Pulteney justly observes, rather. an account of the state of the materia medica, as it was, than as it is, in the works of Lewis, Bergius, Murray, and Cullen.'

ALSTROEMER (JONAS), the reviver of industry and commerce in Sweden, was born in 1685, in the small town of Alingsas in West Gothland, of poor parents. After struggling for a long time with the evils of want, he came

Pulteney's Hiặt. and Biog. Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England.

to London, where he paid particular attention to commercial speculations; and from his inquiries into the prosperity of England, he deduced the importance of manufactures and commerce. His native country, for several centuries engaged in war, had made little progress in the arts of industry, but was now endeavouring to promote them; and Alstroemer having formed his plan, returned to Sweden to assist his fellow-citizens in this undertaking. In 1723, he requested of the states a licence to establish manufactures in the town in which he was born, and it soon became the seat of activity and industry, which spread over other parts of the kingdom. In the mean time he travelled to acquire a knowledge of the inventions and the methods practised in Germany, Holland, and Flanders, collected able workmen, and the best models, and published several instructive papers. At the same time he carried on trade, in partnership with Nicholas Sahlgren, at Gottenburgh. Here he established a sugar-house, traded to the Indies and the Levant, and bestowed so much attention on rural economy, as to introduce some very essential improvements, cultivating plants proper for dying, and extending the culture of potatoes, then a novelty in Sweden. He also improved the wool-trade by importing the sheep of Spain and England, and even the Angora goat. The manufacture of cloth, and other articles from wool, was now much encouraged, and gave employment to a great number of hands, who manufactured to the value of three millions of livrés tournois per annum, and relieved the country from the necessity of having recourse to foreign markets; but in other manufactures, as the silk, they did not succeed so well. Alstroemer has been accused of not paying sufficient attention to local circumstances in some of his schemes, and of having encouraged notions that were more showy than solid; but his design was truly patriotic, and his country readily acknowledged the benefit it has derived from his labours. The king Frederic bestowed on him the title of counsellor of commerce, and the order of the polar star; Adolphus Frederic granted him letters of nobility; and the academy of sciences chose him a member, while the States decreed that his statue should be placed on the exchange. at Stockholm, with this inscription: "Jonas Alstroemer, artium fabrilium in patria instaurator." "J. A.-the reviver of manufactures." He died in 1761, leaving a consider

able fortune. His four sons, Claude, Patrick, John, and Augustus, were distinguished for talents and patriotism, and the first three were members of the academy of Stockholm.1

ALSTROEMER (CLAUDE), son of the preceding, was born in 1736, studied natural history, and was a pupil of Linnæus. He travelled over a considerable part of Europe, beginning with Spain, whence he sent some plants to Linnæus, who mentions him in his "Species plantarum." On landing at Cadiz, he saw in the house of the Swedish consul the flowers of a plant, a native of Peru. Struck with their beauty, he asked and obtained some seeds, which he immediately dispatched to Linnæus, with whom they succeeded, and became generally cultivated under the name of the lily of Alstroemer, or of the Incas. Linnæus perpetuated the name by calling the genus Alstroemeria. Alstroemer communicated with several societies for agriculture and natural history, but one paper only is mentioned of his in the memoirs of the academy of Stockholm, giving a description of the Simia Mammon, a species of ape. He died in 1794.2

ALT (FRANCIS JOSEPH NICHOLAS BARON D'), the descendant of an ancient patrician family of Fribourg in Swisserland, was born there in 1689, and died Feb. 17, 1771. In 1718 he was a captain in the Austrian service, but returned to his country, over which he long presided as avoyer, or magistrate, an appointment conferred upon him in 1737. He published a "Histoire de la Suisse" Fribourg, 1750 to 1753, 10 vols. 8vo, of which baron Zurlauben, a competent and impartial judge, says, that it would have deserved more praise, if besides the many faults of the language (French), he had supported his facts by proofs; if he had omitted matters foreign to the history of Swisserland, which occupy a great deal of the work; if he had made his readers better acquainted with the Swiss government; and had described some of the cantons with more accuracy; if he had passed over in silence events not compatible with the plan of a general history, and if he had not espoused with too much warmth. the cause of the catholic cantons. 3

ALTER (FRANCIS CHARLES), a German classical scholar and critic, was born at Englesberg, in Silesia, in 1749,

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and died at Vienna March 29, 1804. He entered the society of the Jesuits, and was Greek teacher in the school of St. Anne, and the academy of Vienna, until his death. He has published two hundred and fifty volumes and dissertations, the titles of which are given in J. G. Meusel's Allemagne Savante. One of his principal publications was "Novum Testamentum, ad codicem Vindobonensem Græce expressum: varietatem lectionis addidit Franc. C. Alter." vol. I. 1786, vol. II. 1787, 8vo. The groundwork of this edition is the codex Lambecii in the imperial library at Vienna, with which the author has collated other manuscripts in that library, and the Coptic, Sclavonic, and Latin versions; the latter from the valuable fragments of the Vulgate, anterior to that of Jerome. It is thought that he would have succeeded better, if he had adopted as a basis the text of Wetstein or Griesbach, and if he had been more fortunate in arranging his materials. The merits of this edition are examined, with his usual acuteness, by Dr. Herbert Marsh in his supplement to Michaelis's introduction to the New Testament. Of Alter's other works, those in most esteem abroad are: 1. A German translation of Harwood's View of the various editions of the Classics, with notes, Vienna, 1778, 8vo. 2. Various readings from the manuscripts in the imperial library, which he used in the editions printed at Vienna, of Lysias, 1785; Ciceroni's Quæst. Acad. Tusc. 1780, 8vo; Lucretius, 1787, 8vo; Homeri Ilias, 1789-1790, 2 vols. ; also with various readings from the Palatine library; Homeri Odyssea and min. poem. 1794. 3. Some of Plato's Dialogues, 1784, 8vo. 4. Thucydides, 1785, 8vo. 5. The Greek Chronicle of George Phranza or Phranzes, not before printed, Vienna, 1796, fol. 6. Notices on the Literary history of Georgia, in German, 1798, 8vo. His numerous essays and dissertations, which are upon curious and recondite subjects, illustrations of Oriental and Greek manuscripts, &c. have appeared in the German literary journals at various periods, particularly in the Memorabilien of M. Paulus, and the Allg. Litt. Anzeiger de Leipzig.

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ALTHAMERUS (ANDREW), a celebrated Lutheran minister at Nuremberg, published in the sixteenth century several works in Divinity, as "Conciliationes locorum

1 Biog. Universelle.

scripturæ," 1528, 8vo, Latin and German; "Annotationes in Jacobi Epistolam ;" "De Peccato Originali ;" and "De Sacramento altaris." He likewise published "Sylva Biblicorum nominum," Basil, 1535; and "Notes upon Tacitus de situ, moribus, et populis Germaniæ," Nuremberg, 1529, 1536, and at Amberg, 1609, 8vo. He was at the conferences at Berne in 1528, which paved the way to the reformation of that canton. His principles appear to have inclined to Antinomianism, and he attacked the authority of the Epistle of St. James with great indecency this afterwards was introduced in the dispute between Grotius and Rivet, of which an account may be seen in Bayle. Althamerus, who died about 1540, was sometimes called Andrew Brentius from the place of his nativity, Brentz, near Gundelfingen, in Swabia; and sometimes he assumed the fictitious name of Palæo Sphyra. I. Arnold Ballenstad published a life of him in 1740.1

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ALTHUSEN, or ÂLTHUSIUS (JOHN), a German Protestant lawyer, was born about the middle of the sixteenth century, and became law-professor at Herborn, and syndic at Bremen. He wrote some treatises in the way his profession, "De Jurisprudentia Romana," and "De civili conversatione;" but what made him principally known, was his "Politica methodice digesta," 1603, in which he maintained the sovereignty of the people, and their right to put kings to death, and those other doctrines, the effects of which were so extensively displayed in England in the seventeenth, and in France in the eighteenth century. A recent French biographer, Michaud, observes that "these strange opinions produced by the revolutionary spirit which prevailed in the sixteenth century, have been revived in ours by the demagogues, who fancy that they are advancing something new." Althusen died in the early part of the seventeenth century.

2

ALTICOZZI (LAURENCE), of an illustrious family at Cortona, was born there, March 25, 1689. He entered the society of the Jesuits in 1706, and died in 1777, at Rome, where he had lived many years. He was esteemed a man of great learning, piety, and amiable manners. His principal work is his "Sum of St. Augustine," Rome, 1761, 6 vols. 4to, in which he gives a history of Pelagi

1 Gen. Dict.-Seckendorf's Hist. of Lutheranism.—Saxii Onomasticon Gen. Dict.-Michaud, in Biog. Universelle.

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