Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/449

 6. ‘Gerardi L. B. van Swieten commentariorum in Boerhaave aphorismos compendium,’ 1762. 7. ‘Van Swieten's commentaries abridged,’ vol. i. 1762, ii. 1768, iii. and iv. 1774. 8. ‘Treatise on Colica Pictonum,’ translated from Tronchin, 1764. 9. F. Duport de Signis Morborum, edited with a few notes, 1765. 10. ‘Death of Bucephalus,’ a burlesque tragedy acted at Edinburgh, 1765. 11. ‘Life of Mæcenas,’ 1748, 2nd edit. 1766; this was based on the works of Meibomius and Richer. 12. ‘Essai sur la Conformité de la Médecine Ancienne et Moderne dans le Traitement des Maladies Aiguës,’ translated into French by Schomberg from the English of John Barker, M.D., 1768. 13. ‘Judgment of Paris;’ a burletta performed at the Haymarket, with music by Barthélemon, 1768. 14. ‘Critical Dissertation on Character and Writings of Pindar and Horace,’ 1769; founded for the most part on a little work by François Blondel, printed at Paris in 1673. 15. ‘Medico-mastix’ (anon.), 1771. 16. ‘The Theorists: a satire by the author of “Medico-mastix,”’ 1774. 17. ‘Μουσικὴ Ἰατρεία, or a Fiddle the best Doctor’ (anon.), 1774. 18. ‘Fashion,’ a poem (anon.), 1775.

Schomberg was for some time a contributor to the ‘Batheaston Vase’ of Anna, Lady Miller [q. v.], but his effusions were not favourably received. A play of his, entitled ‘Romulus and Hersilia,’ was offered to Garrick, but was condemned. The manuscript of this and of other unpublished works by him is in the possession of Mr. Arthur Schomberg of Seend, Melksham. Several letters between Schomberg and E. M. da Costa are printed in Nichols's ‘Illustrations of Literature’ (iv. 762–9).

[Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, iii. 28–30; Munk's Coll. of Phys. (2nd edit.) ii. 82; Robinson's Merchant Taylors' School, ii. 67; Gent. Mag. 1792, ii. 674.]

 SCHOMBURGK, ROBERT HERMANN (1804–1865), traveller, whose name is permanently associated with the boundary of British Guiana, was son of the Rev. John Frederick Lewis Schomburgk, a protestant minister in Thuringia, by the daughter of J. Krippendorf, counsellor of the princes of Reuss-Gera. He was born at Freiburg in Silesia on 5 June 1804, and educated in Germany. His taste for natural history led him in 1830 to the West Indies, and in 1831 he surveyed, at his own cost, the littoral of Anegada, one of the Virgin islands. His results were printed in the ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,’ 1831, ii. 152–70, and attracted some notice. During 1831–5, under the direction of the Royal Geographical Society, he explored the rivers Essequibo (the sources of which he was the first to reach), Corentyn, and Berbice, and investigated in detail the capabilities of the colony of British Guiana. In the course of these researches he discovered and sent to England the magnificent lily Victoria Regia, now well established in Europe. By his journey across the interior from the Essequibo to Esmeralda on the Orinoco he was enabled to connect his observations with those of his countryman, Humboldt, and to determine astronomically a series of fixed points extending across the watershed of the great rivers of equatorial America (Journal Royal Geogr. Society, 1865, pp. cxxi–ii). For these services the Royal Geographical Society conferred on him in 1840 one of its gold medals. On his return to Europe he represented to the British government the necessity of settling the actual boundary of British Guiana, and on 10 Dec. 1840 he was appointed a commissioner for surveying and marking out the boundaries of the colony. He began in 1841 by marking the line on the north-west. During 1841–3 he extended his survey southward, making Pirara his headquarters, and finishing by a journey thence overland to the head waters of the Corentyn, down which river he descended to Demerara (Journal Roy. Geogr. Soc. 1845, xv. 1–104). His delimitation proposals, known as ‘the Schomburgk line,’ subsequently became famous during the prolonged boundary dispute between British Guiana and the neighbouring country of Venezuela (see Times, 5 Oct. 1895, pp. 5 et seq., 1 Jan. 1896, pp. 10 et seq.; Whitaker's Almanack, 1896, p. 584, with map). On Schomburgk's arrival in England he was knighted by patent on 26 Dec. 1844.

Schomburgk was gazetted British consul in St. Domingo on 25 May 1848, and plenipotentiary to conclude a treaty of amity and commerce between Great Britain and that republic on 23 Feb. 1849. He was appointed British consul at Bangkok, Siam, on 1 May 1857, and there continued his geographical surveys. Besides other excursions, including in 1859–60 an important journey from Bangkok to Chiengmai, the capital of the tributary kingdom of Laos, he repaired to the isthmus of Kra, with a view to ascertaining by observation the value of the recommendation to cut a ship canal across it, whereby the detour by the straits of Malacca might be spared ships trading between Siam and British India. His health declining, he retired from the public service with a pension in December 1864. From the university of Königsberg he received the degree of doctor