FRASER, John, a zealous collector of North American plants, was born in Inverness-shire in 1750, and died in 1811. After acquiring a knowledge of plants in Scotland, he went to London in 1770, and was patronized by Sir James Edward Smith and other eminent botanists. Between 1780 and 1784 Fraser visited Newfoundland, and in 1785 he examined the botany of the southern states of America. He transmitted to Britain many important plants and seeds. He again went to America in 1788, and explored Carolina and Georgia partly in company with Michaux. Twice between 1789 and 1796 he revisited America. In 1796 he visited Russia, and was subsequently appointed botanical collector by the Emperor Paul. In 1800 he proceeded with his son to Cuba, for the purpose of making botanical collections. His exertions were not rewarded by the Emperor Alexander, who succeeded Paul; and owing to this ungracious proceeding, he was subjected to great pecuniary loss. He continued, however, to labour as a collector in America, and introduced many valuable plants, a list of which has been given in the Companion to the Botanical Magazine.—J. H. B.
FRASER, Simon. See Lovat.
FRASER, Simon, an eminent British general, and lieutenant-colonel of the 24th regiment of infantry. He was second in command when the army of General Burgoyne advanced from Canada to New York in 1777. While leading on his troops at Stillwater, General Fraser was struck by a shot and fell. The wound proved mortal, and he died on the 7th October. In compliance with his desire he was buried within the "great redoubt" on the field. At sunset on a calm evening the corpse was borne to the grave. A few friends of the deceased general, and the chaplain, Mr. Brudenel, formed the mournful procession. The Americans, observing their approach, and ignorant of their purpose, opened fire on the redoubt. Arrived at the grave, the chaplain read the funeral service of the English church, while the balls which struck the redoubt scattered the earth over him. Suddenly the firing ceased, but was followed by the booming of the minute gun, fired in honour of the dead by the Americans, who had just discovered that the gathering at the redoubt was a funeral company. General Fraser was highly esteemed by his brother officers, who believed that had he lived, the campaign and the whole war would have had a different issue. Burgoyne, it is said, was affected to tears by his death. The regiment in which he served acted under Wolfe in the ascent of the heights of Abraham, 12th September, 1759; and under Murray was also engaged at the battle of Quebec in 1760.—R. F.
FRAUENLOB, Heinrich. See Meissen, Heinrich von.
FRAUNCE, Abraham, an English poet, whose name is now little current in the literature of his country, though in the days of Elizabeth he was not without estimation as a writer both in prose and verse. The date of his birth is not known, but it may be assigned to the middle of the sixteenth century. Sir Philip Sidney took him under his patronage while a youth, and sent him to St. John's college, Cambridge, where, we learn from himself, he spent eight years. Choosing the profession of the law, he studied at Gray's inn, and being called to the bar, he commenced his practice at the court of the Marches in Wales. He contrived to divide his allegiance between the Muses and Themis, publishing "The Lamentations of Amyntas" in hexameters in 1587, and "Lawiers' Logike" the year following. It appears that he was seventeen years meditating over this work, having begun it as a general discourse on logic, when he "first came in presence of that right noble and most renowned knight, Sir Philip Sidney," and revised it six times in seven years. It is a curious and a clever work, exhibiting not only logical ability and precision, but much erudition and research. The poetical dedication, with all its quaintness and formality, is terse and vigorous, full of point, and remarkably harmonious. A portion of the book illustrates the rules of logic by a translation of an eclogue of Virgil. Fraunce wrote several other poems in English hexameters and pentameters, "in melodious dactyls and spondees, to the no small admiration of Sidney and Harvey." Fraunce was luckily one of the few men of law who was not ruined by his poetical propensities, for he had the good fortune to be recommended by the earl of Pembroke to Burleigh, then lord-treasurer, who, in August, 1590, gave him the office of her majesty's solicitor in the Welsh court in which he practised. He died some time in the seventeenth century.—J. F. W.
FRAUNHOFER, Joseph von, a celebrated optician and mathematician, born 6th March, 1787, at Straubing, Bavaria. His father, who was a glass-cutter, died in 1798, and he himself was apprenticed in August, 1799, to a glass-cutter named Weichselberger. He devoted to study the very few leisure hours which his occupation left at his disposal, and soon acquired, unaided, a considerable knowledge of mathematics and optics. He constructed a glass-cutting machine, and ground optical glasses. In June, 1801, an accident occurred which, although, it nearly cost him his life, opened the way to future success. The old house in which he lodged fell to the ground, burying him in the ruins. When this circumstance became known, several persons of rank and fortune took an interest in him, and among others. King Maximilian Joseph, who gave him eighteen ducats, and promised his protection for the future. In 1807 his patrons placed him with the celebrated philosophical instrument makers, Reichenbach and Utzschneider at Benedictbaiern, near Munich. While in their employment he distinguished himself by his inventive genius and skill. He made many important experiments on light, and constructed instruments of superior kinds for celestial observations. By his discoveries and improvements he greatly increased the reputation of his employers' establishment, of which he eventually became proprietor. His most remarkable discovery was that of the existence of a series of dark lines in the spectra, produced by the refraction of the sun's light in a prism. He observed three hundred and fifty-four of these lines, but Sir David Brewster found many more. By means of a theodolite he measured the angular distances between the most strongly marked of these lines. He observed similar marks in the spectra of the moon. Mars, Venus, and some of the fixed stars, and in spectra formed by two polarized pencils, produced by a prism of Iceland spar. An account of his observations on spectra was published at Munich in 1815. He made many curious experiments in relation to refracted light. His observations on the phenomena, witnessed when a ray of light passes through small apertures of different sizes, and through wire grating, are very interesting. An account of these was published in quarto at Munich. He executed an equatorially mounted telescope for the observatory at Dorpat, superior to any other then in use. His "Researches concerning the Laws of Light" are printed in Gilbert's Annals of Physics. He was a member of the University of Erlangen, of the Astronomical Institute of Edinburgh, and of the Royal Academy of Science at Munich, and keeper of its museum of physics. The king of Bavaria invested him with the order of merit (civil list), and the king of Denmark with that of Danébrog. He died on the 7th June, 1826. He was buried by the side of Reichenbach, who died a few years previously. Upon the door of his monument is inscribed—Approximavit sidera.—W. A. B.
FRAYSSINOUS, Denis-Luc, a French prelate, was the son of a farmer, and born at Curières, 9th May, 1765. He studied at the college of Rodez, and at Paris, under the direction of the fathers of Saint Sulpice, who admitted him to the priesthood in 1789. In 1801 he commenced instructing privately a few of the students of Saint Sulpice, and afterwards, changing his style from that of the pedagogue to that of the orator, gradually attracted to the church of the Carmelites an immense audience of the elite of Paris. This course of christian instruction, which lasted six months in the year, was suppressed in 1809, in consequence of the quarrel between Napoleon and the pope. After the dispersion of the congregation of Saint Sulpice, Frayssinous retired to his native place, and only returned to Paris on the restoration of the Bourbons. He resumed his lectures in October, 1814, but was again silenced during the Hundred Days, and did not appear in his chair till February, 1816. During the controversy excited by the concordat of 1817, he published "Les vrais Principes de l'Élglise gallicane sur la puissance ecclésiastique, la papauté, les libertés gallicanes," &c. He delivered his last lecture at Saint Sulpice in 1822, and was immediately after raised to the bishopric of Hermopolis in partibus, by Pius VII. Three years later he was made grandmaster of the university by Louis XVIII. He was also raised to the peerage, with the title of count, and appointed minister of ecclesiastical affairs and of public instruction in 1824. About the same time the membership of the Académie was bestowed on him, and he published, by command of the king, his "Défense du Christianisme," a series of lectures which were translated into English and other languages. After the revolution of 1830 he paid a visit to Rome, and became preceptor to the duc de Bordeaux. He died 12th December, 1841.—R. M., A.
