Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/878

Rh 842 F A B F A B and, on his return to Hamburg, not long afterwards, he com peted for the chair of logic and philosophy. The suffrages being equally divided between Fabricius and Sebastian Edzardi, one of his opponents, the appointment was decided by lot in favour of Edzardi ; but in 1699 Fabricius suc ceeded Vincent Placcius in the chair of rhetoric and ethics, after which he took the degree of doctor in theology at Kiel. In 1701 J. F. Mayer, who had established himself at Greilswald, caused the chair of theology in that city co be offered to Fabricius; but he refused it on account of his health. But in 1708 he accepted the professorship of theology, logic, and metaphysics, and was preparing to enter on his new office, when the senate of Hamburg in duced him to remain, by adding to his professorship the office of rector of the school of St John, then held by his father-in-law Schultz. Schultz died in 1709, but Fabricius retained the rectorship two years longer. In 1719 the land grave of Hesse-Cassel made him so advantageous an offer that he was on the point of accepting it; but this time also the magistrates, by a seasonable increase of salary, prevailed on him to remain with them. An attempt was subse quently made to draw him to Wittenberg ; but he refused to listen to the proposals made to him, and remained at Hamburg, where he died April 30, 1736. Niceron and Reimar give a list of 128 Looks by Fabricius, but very many of them were only works which he had edited. One of the most famed and laborious of his works is the Bibliothcca Latina, sive notitia auclorum vctcrum Latinorum quorumcunque scripta ad nos per vencr unt, Hamburg, 1697, 8vo, a work which was republished in an improved and amended form by J. A. Ernesti, Leipsic, 1773, in three vols. 8vo. The divisions of the compilation are the writers to the age of Tiberius ; thence to that of the Antonines ; and thirdly, to the decay of the language ; while a fourth gives fragments from old authors, and chapters on early Christian literature. His chef d ceuvre is the Bibliothcca, Grceca, sive notitia scriptorum vctcrum Grcecorum quorumcunquc tnonumenta Integra aut frag- mcnta cdita extant, turn plcrorumque e manuscript, ac dcperditis, Hamburg, 1705-1728, in 14 vols. 4to, a work which has justly been denominated maximus antiques eruditionis thesaurus. It was re arranged by Harles, at Hamburg, in 1790. Its divisions are marked off by Homer, Plato, Christ, Constantine, and the capture of Constantinople in 1453, while a sixth section is devoted to canon law, jurisprudence, and medicine. Of his remaining works we may mention Bibliothcca Antiquaria, sive introductio in notitiam scriptorum qui antiquitatcs Hcbraicas, Grcecas, Romanas, et Christianas scriptis illustrarunt, 1713 and 1726, 4to; Centifolium Lutheranum, sive notitia litcraria scriptorum omnis fjcncris de B. D. Luthero, 1728 and 1730, 8vo ; as also Salutaris lux cvangdii toti orbi per divinam gratiam exoricns, sive notitia historico-chronologica, litteraria, ac geographica propagalorum per orbcm totum Christiana- rum sacrorum, 1731, 4to ; and Hydro-theology, in German, 1734, 4to. Among the principal works edited by Fabricius may be named Joannis Mabillonii iter Germanicum, et Joannis Laiinoii dc Scholis celebribus a Carolo Magno ct post Carolum Magnum in occidcntc instauratis liber, 1717, 8vo. The details of the life of Fabricius are to be found in De Vita ct Scriptis J. A. Fabricii Commcntarius, by his son-in-law, H. S. Reimar, published at Hamburg, 1757. This is the work whence Niceron, Chauffepie, and other writers on the subject have borrowed their materials. Niceron s work is entitled Mcmoires pour servir a, Vhistoire des Jiommcs illustrcs dans la rcpublique des lettres, avcc un catalogue raisonne de leurs ouvrages, Paris, 1729-1745. FABRICIUS, JOHANN CHRISTIAN (1745-1808), one of the chief founders of scientific entomology, was born at Tondern in Schleswig, January 7, 1745. His father was a physician of enlightened views, who encouraged his son s inclination to study the natural sciences, and, after educating him at Altona and Copenhagen, sent him to Upsala, where, attending the lectures of the great Linnaeus, his future des tiny, as he himself says, appears to have been laid. Of his career, apart from entomology, it may be briefly recorded that he devoted his attention professionally to political economy, and, after lecturing on that subject in 1769, was appointed a few years later professor of natural history, economy, and finance at Kiel, in which capacity he wrote various works, chiefly referring to Denmark, and of no special interest. He also published a few other works on general and natural history, botany, and travel (of which the Reise nach Nonvegen, 1779, deserves separate mention), for, although his professional stipend was small, he extended his personal researches into every town in northern and central Europe where a natural history museum was to be found. In 1771 he married the daughter of Counsellor Ambrosius of Flensborg, by whom he had two sons and one daughter; and he died on 3d March 1808. It is, however, purely as an entomologist that the memory of Fabricius survives, aided perhaps in this country by the fact that he visited Great Britain many times after 1767, exhibiting a marked partiality for English naturalists, amongst whom were Solander, Sir Joseph Banks, Drury, Hunter, Francillou, Pennant, and Greville. Sir Joseph Banks s specimens, indeed, formerly in the col lection of the Linnean Society, and now separately trea sured in the British Museum, still retain the labels written by Fabricius, and are often consulted by entomologists as evidence of his views. For many years his great scientific reputation rested upon the system of classification, which (it can scarcely be said in opposition to that of bis revered master Limueus) he founded upon the structure of the mouth-organs, instead of the wings. No scheme, however, based upon solitary characters suffices any longer for the comprehension of the vast number of forms now known to science; and, although the value of the cibarian organs is still fully recognized, the system exclusively founded on them has long since passed into disuse. But the name of Fabricius is indelibly stamped upon the science, as he had a keen eye for specific differences, and possessed the art of describing in a marvellously terse and accurate manner ; and, from his being recognized as a master, added to the opportunities afforded during his many journeys to European capitals, great numbers of insects passed through his hands for description and arrangement according to his system, at a time when almost everything was new, owing to paucity of workers. A complete list of his entomological publications (31) will be found in Hagen s Bibliothcca Entomologies; the following are the chief : Syslcma Entomologice, 1775 ; Genera Inscctorum, 1776 ; Philosophia Entomolocjica, 1778 ; Species insectorum, 1781 ; Man tissa Inscctorum, 1787 ; Entomologia Systcmatica, 1792-1794, icith a supplement, 1798 ; Systema Elcuthcralorum (1801), Ehyn- gotorum (1803), Piczatorum (1804), and Antliatorum (1805). Full particulars of his life will be found, with a portrait, in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, vol. iv. (1845), pp. i.-xvi. , where his autobiography is translated from the Danish by the Rev. F. AY. Hope, then president of the society. There is also a good account by Professor Westwood, in the article &quot; Insecta,&quot; British Cyclopaedia, p. 881. Baron Walckenaer s verbose life in the Biographic Univcrsclle, like Latreille s &quot;Notice Biographique &quot; in the Annalcs du Museum d Histoire Naturclle, ii. 393 (1808), contains important errors. FABRONI, ANGELO (1732-1803), a celebrated Italian biographer, was born at Morradi, Tuscany, 25th September 1732. After studying at Faenza under the grammarian Girolamo Ferri, he entered the Roman college founded for the education of young Tuscans. On the conclusion of his three years curriculum, he resolved, being determined to at tain to literary distinction, to continue his stay in Rome, and having been introduced to the celebrated Jansenist Bottari, received from him the canonry of S. Teresa in Trastevere. Some time after this he was chosen to preach a discourse in the pontifical chapel before Benedict XIV., and made such a favourable impression that the pontiff settled on him an annuity left by the Countess Rospigliosi to young men who had taken a degree in law. With the possession of this annuity Fabroni was able to devote his whole time to study. Besides his other literary labours, he commenced at Pisa in 1771 a literary journal, which he continued till 1796. About 1772 he made a journey to Paris, where he formed the acquaintance of Condorcet, Diderot, D Alembert,