RUSSIA.

The following extraordinary paragraph has lately been going the round of our English newspapers, without any one's detecting the hoax. "One of the most celebrated Russian poets, Gabriel Romanowitch Derzavin, lately died at his estate near Novgorod. In his youth he served with distinction in the Russian army, and was created minister of justice by Catherine II. Soon after, he retired, and devoted his time to poetry." Then follows some mention of the Chinese translation of his celebrated ode "To God," after which it is added, “The English have also translated some of his works, and published them in 1808, in four volumes!" This farrago of blunders professes to be copied from a " French paper;" still that is hardly an excuse for stating what is altogether so contrary to fact, as that a translation of his works in four volumes ever appeared in this country. We doubt whether any specimens even of Russian poetry had at that time been given to the English reader; and Bowring's Russian Anthology contains all that has been translated from the poems of Derzhavin. In the biographical notice of him too, in the same publication, the time of his death is mentioned, and as that happened in 1816, it rather startled us to learn that it was a recent occurrence; for although the term "lately" is one of most convenient latitude, the readers of newspapers would hardly imagine it applicable to occurrences of sixteen years date, nor would any one speak of the battle of Waterloo as having been "lately" fought.

SWITZERLAND.

Necrology.-HUBER.-Everything which suggests the idea of difficulties overcome, generally flatters the imagination. The least adventurous and the least inventive are delighted to see, by examples, in what manner the corporeal or intellectual power of their fellow-creatures has been able to vanquish obstacles to all appearance insurmountable; and it is this feeling which gave rise to all the wonderful tales of the heroes of ancient times. Persons who are more accustomed to reflection take a pleasure in following these examples into their details, and in studying the process by which some ingenious minds have been able to surmount difficulties, or to turn them aside. If the effects are of short duration, we admire them as mere meteors; but if the obstacle is permanent, and the efforts to surmount it are corresponding, the admiration which we felt for the sudden development of momentary energy is converted into one still deeper for that continued force, and that patient and unshaken determination, which fall to the lot of so few individuals. Such examples should be placed on record for the honour of human kind, and for the encouragement of all whom the contemplation of difficulties might be apt to divert from their object. Perhaps these reflections, far-fetched as they may at first appear to be, will receive some confirmation from the history of the individual to whom this notice is consecrated.

Francis Huber was born at Geneva in July, 1750, of an honourable family, in which quickness of intellect and a lively imagination seemed hereditary. His father, John Huber, had the reputation of being one of the wittiest men

For this sketch, which first appeared in the Bibliothèque Universelle of Geneva, we are indebted to the able pen of M. de Candolle. It would form a most interesting additional chapter to the clever little work entitled "The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties," published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

of his time, and in this light is often mentioned by Voltaire, who highly appreciated his original conversation. He was an agreeable musician-wrote verses which were praised even at Ferney-was distinguished by his keen and lively repartees-painted with ease and talent-excelled to that degree in cutting out landscapes, as almost to entitle him to be considered the creator of the art-practised sculpture better than almost ever falls to the lot of a mere amateur;* and to these varied talents he united a taste for, and the art of, observing the manners of animals. His work on the flight of birds of prey is even yet consulted with advantage by naturalists. The tastes of the father, the son inherited almost entire. In his early years he attended the public lectures of the college, and, under the guidance of good masters, acquired a taste for literature, which was developed by the conversation of his father; to this paternal inspiration he was also indebted for his love of natural history; he was initiated in the physical sciences by attending the lectures of M. de Saussure, and by making experiments in the laboratory of a relative, who ruined himself in the search for the philosopher's stone. Endowed with great warmth of feeling, his precocity was very remarkable; he commenced the study of nature at an age when others are scarcely conscious of its existence, and bis passions were strong at a period when those of others scarcely rise to simple emotions. It would seem that as he was shortly destined to suffer the most grievous of all privations, he, as if instinctively, laid up a store of recullections and feelings for the remainder of his life. About the age of fifteen his general health and the state of his eye-sight began to change; the ardour with which he had pursued his occupations and amusements, and the passionate attachment with which he followed his studies by day and the reading of romances by night-when sometimes the deprivation of a feeble light made him have recourse to the light of the moon-were the causes, it is said, which threatened the ruin both of his sight and constitution. His father, at that period, took him to Paris, in order to consult Tronchin on his health and Wenzel on the state of his eyes. Tronchin, with the view of preventing marasmus, sent him to pass some time at Stain, a village in the environs of Paris, in order to be out of the reach of every species of agitation: there he lived the life of a mere peasant, led the plough, and occupied himself wholly in agricultural pursuits. This plan was completely successful so far as regarded his general health, which was ever afterwards unshaken, while he acquired a taste for the country and a tender recollection of its pleasures, which never forsook him. The oculist, Wenzel, considered the state of his sight as incurable; he thought it unsafe to risk the operation for the cataract, which was then not so well understood as it is now, and even announced to Huber the probability of his shortly becoming completely blind. His eyes, however, in spite of their weakness, had, before his departure and after his return, encountered those of Marie-Aimée Lullin, the daughter of one of the syndics of the republic; they had met each other frequently at the dancing-master's. A mutual affection, such as is felt at the age of seventeen, sprung up between them, and became part of their existence; neither of them believed it possible that their fate could be disunited, but yet the constantly-increasing chance of the speedy blindness of Huber determined M. Lullin to refuse his consent to their union in proportion, however, as the misfortune of her friend-of the partner whom she had chosen-became certain, in the same degree Marie regarded herself as bound never to forsake him. Her attachment was first riveted by love, and afterwards from generosity and a species of heroism; and

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An instance of his talent in this way has been preserved; holding out a piece of bread to his dog, and making him bite it in all directions, he produced from it a bust of Voltaire of the most striking resemblance.

she resolved to wait till she had attained her majority, then fixed at twentyfive years, in order to be united to Huber. To all the temptations, and even to all the persecutions by which her father endeavoured to shake her resolution, she remained impregnable; and the moment she attained her majority, she presented herself at the altar, leading, so to speak, the spouse whom she had chosen when he was happy and attractive, and to whose melancholy fate she was resolved now to devote her life.

The constancy of Madathe Huber was in all respects worthy of the juvenile energy she had displayed: during the forty years which this union lasted, she never ceased to bestow the tenderest care on her blind husband; she was his reader, his secretary, made observations for him, and spared him every embarrassment that his situation was likely to produce. This affecting instance of conjugal attachment has been mentioned by celebrated writers; Voltaire frequently alludes to it in his correspondence, and the episode of the Belmont family in Delphine is a true picture, although somewhat veiled, of that of Huber and his wife. What can be added to a picture by such masters!

We have seen blind men excel as poets; some have distinguished themselves as philosophers and as arithmeticians; but it was reserved for Huber to become illustrious, although deprived of sight, in the science of observation, and that of objects so minute, that the most clear-sighted observers find a difficulty in distinguishing them. The perusal of the works of Reaumur and of Bonnet, and the conversations of the latter, directed his curiosity to the study of bees; his coustant residence in the country inspired him at first with the desire of verifying some facts, and afterwards of filling up some chasms in the history of these insects. But for this kind of observation it was not only necessary that he should have an instrument such as the labours of the optician might supply, but also an intelligent assistant, whom no one but himself could instruct in the use of it. At this time he had a servant in his family named Francis Burnens, equally remarkable for his sagacity and his attachment to his master. Huber drilled him in the art of observing, directed him in his inquiries by questions dexterously combined, and by means of his own youthful recollections, and the confirmatory testimony of his wife and friends, he checked the reports of his assistant, and in this way succeeded in acquiring a clear and accurate idea of the most minute facts. "I am much more certain," he said to me one day, laughing,“ of what I relate than you are yourself, for you publish only what you have seen with your own eyes, whereas I take a medium among the testimony of many." This, indeed, is very plausible reasoning, but will induce no one to quarrel with his eyes. Huber discovered that the mysterious and remarkably prolific nuptials of the queen-bee, the single mother of all her tribe, are celebrated, not in the hive, but in the open air, at an elevation sufficiently great to escape ordinary eyes, but not to elude the intelligence of a blind man, with the aid of a peasant. He described in detail the consequences of the early or late celebration of this aerial hymen. He confirmed, by repeated observation, the discovery of Schirach, at that time disputed, that becs can at their pleasure transform, by an appropriate kind of food, the eggs of working bees to queens, or, to speak more correctly, of neuters to females. He showed also how some working bees can lay productive eggs. He described with great care the combats of the queen bees with each other, the massacre of the drones, and all the singular circumstances that take place in the hive when a foreign queen is substituted for the indigenous one. He showed the influence produced by the size of the cells on the size of the insects reared in them; how the larvæ of the bees spin the silk of their cells; proved to demonstration that the queen is oviparous; studied the origin of swarms, and was the first who gave an accurate history of their flying colonies. He proved that the use of the antennæ is to enable the bees to distinguish each other, and, from the know

ledge he had acquired of their policy, he drew up good rules for their economical superintendence. For the greater part of these delicate, and hitherto unnoticed observations, he was indebted to his invention, under various forms, of glass hives, one description of which he termed ruches en livre, or en feuillets (book or sheet hives), and the other ruches plates (flat hives), which allowed the observation of the labours of the community in their minutest details, and to follow, so to speak, each bee in particular. They were particularly facili tated by the skill of Burnens, and by his zeal for the discovery of truth; he braved without shrinking the wrath of an entire hive to discover the most insignificant fact, and has been seen to seize an enormous wasp, in spite of the grievous stings of a whole nest of hornets who defended him. From this we may judge of the enthusiasm with which his master, (and I use the term here, not as denoting the relation of master and servant, but in the sense of instructor and pupil,) inspired all his agents in the pursuit of truth.

The publication of these labours took place in 1792 in the shape of letters to Charles Bonnet, and under the title of Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles. Naturalists were much struck on the appearance of this work, not only with the novelty of the facts, but with their rigorous accuracy, and the extraordinary difficulties which the author had combated so successfully.

The activity of his researches suffered no remission either by this first success, which might have sufficed for his personal vanity, or from the embarrassing change of place occasioned by the Revolution-nor even by his separation from his faithful Burnens. Another assistant was necessary to him, and this office his wife performed for some time. His son Peter, who afterwards acquired considerable celebrity by his History of Ants and other insects, next commenced his apprenticeship as observer to his father, and it was principally by his assistance that Huber executed new and laborious researches on his favourite insects. These researches form the second volume of the second edition of his work, published in 1814, and partly edited by his son.

The origin of wax was then a disputed point among naturalists in the history of bees; some affirmed, but without sufficient proof, that they formed it with the honey; Huber, who had already successfully cleared up the origin of the propolis, confirmed this opinion on the wax by numerous observations, and showed in particular, with the assistance of Burnens, how it escapes in the shape of flakes between the rings of the abdomen. He devoted himself to laborious researches on the formation of the bee-hive, and followed step by step its wonderful construction, which seems to resolve, by its perfection, the most delicate problems of geometry; he pointed out the part which each class of bees takes in forming the hive, and followed their labours from the rudiments of the first cell until the completion of the honey-comb. He made known the ravages of the sphinx atropos in the hives where it enters. He even attempted to clear up the history of the senses in bees, and in particular to ascertain the seat of the sense of smell, the existence of which is proved by the whole history of insects, but the organ of which their structure has not yet enabled us to fix with certainty. He also undertook curious researches on the respiration of bees, and proved, by numerous experiments, that these insects absorb oxygen like other animals. The question, however, arose, how could the air be renewed and preserved in all its purity in a hive plastered with mastic and close in all its parts, except at the narrow orifice which serves as the entrance? This problem required all the sagacity of our observer, and he arrived at the conclusion that the bees, by a particular movement of their wings, agitate the air in such a manner as to produce its renovation; after having assured himself of this by direct observation, he further proved it by means of the experiment of an artificial ventilation..

These experiments on respiration required some analysis of the air in bee

hives, and this brought Huber into correspondence with Senebier, who was then occupied with similar researches on vegetables. Among the means that Huber had at first imagined for discovering the nature of the air in bee-hives, was that of producing the germination of some kinds of seeds, in accordance with the vague notion that seeds never germinate in an atmosphere that has not its due quantity of oxygen. This experiment, although inadequate for the end proposed, suggested to the two friends the idea of occupying themselves with inquiries on germination; and the curious part of this association between a man with and another without his eyes, is the fact that, most frequently, it was Senebier who suggested the experiments, and Huber, deprived of sight, who executed them. Their labours have been published in their joint names, under the title of Mémoires sur l'influence de l'air dans la germination des graines.

The style of Huber is, in general, clear and elegant, and while not destitute of the precision required in didactic compositions, it is blended with that charm which a poetical imagination is capable of diffusing over all subjects. That, however, by which it is particularly distinguished, as it is least expected, is his description of facts in so graphic a manner, that in the perusal we seem ourselves to see the objects which the author, alas! had not seen. In considering this singularly descriptive quality of the style of a blind person, I have accounted for it by reflecting on the efforts it must have cost him to connect the accounts of his assistants in order to form a complete idea.

His taste for the fine arts, being deprived of the power of expatiating on form, was led to sounds. He loved poetry; but music, above all, had prodigious charms for him: his taste for it might be called innate, and he was greatly indebted to it throughout his whole life as a source of delightful recreation: his voice was agreeable, and he had been initiated from his earliest youth in the charms of Italian music.

The wish to keep up acquaintance with absent friends without having recourse to a secretary, suggested to him the idea of having a printing press for his own use; it was made for him by his servant, Claude Lechet, whom he had inspired with a taste for mechanics, in the same way that he had formerly instructed Burnens in natural history. A series of numbered cases contained small printing types, executed in bold relief, which he ranged in his hand: on the lines thus composed he placed a sheet of paper blackened with a particular kind of ink, and above that a sheet of white paper, and with a press which his foot set in motion he succeeded in printing a letter, which he folded and sealed himself, delighted at the idea of his independence of others, which he hoped to acquire by this means. The difficulty, however, of putting the press in action made him soon abandon the habitual use of it; but these letters and the algebraic characters of burnt earth, which his son, ever zealous and ingenious in his service, had made for him, were a source of occupation and amusement for upwards of fifteen years. He enjoyed also the pleasure of walking in the fields, and was even able to do this alone, by means of strings, which were extended through all the paths about his residence: with these strings in his hand, and by small knots made at intervals, he always knew where he was, and could direct himself accordingly.

The activity of his mind made it necessary that he should have such occupations: it might, but for the persons that were about him, have made him the most miserable of mankind; all of these had no other wish but to please and assist him: naturally of kindly feelings, it ceases to be a wonder how he preserved such a happy disposition, so often destroyed by collision with mankind. His conversation was generally of an amiable and pleasant cast, his wit was gay and lively, and to no part of knowledge was he a stranger: he delighted in elevating his thoughts to contemplation on the most grave and important