CUTTS OF GOWRAN

cutts of gowran, john cutts, baron (1661-1707), british soldier and author, came of an essex family. after a short university career at catherine hall, cambridge, he came into the enjoyment of the family estates, but evinced a decided preference for the life of court and camp. the double ambition for military and literary fame inspired his first work, which appeared in 1685 under the name _la muse de cavalier, or an apology for such gentlemen as make poetry their diversion not their business_. the next year saw cutts serving as a volunteer under charles of lorraine in hungary, and it is said that he was the first to plant the imperialist standard on the walls at the storm of buda (july 1686). in 1687 he published a book of verse entitled _poetical exercises_, and the following year we find him serving as lieutenant-colonel in holland. general hugh mackay describes cutts about this time as "pretty tall, lusty and well shaped, an agreeable companion with abundance of wit, affable and familiar, but too much seized with vanity and self-conceit." lieutenant-colonel cutts was one of william's companions in the english revolution of 1688, and in 1690 he went in command of a regiment of foot to the irish war. he served with distinction at the battle of the boyne, and at the siege of limerick (where he was wounded), and king william created him baron cutts of gowran in the kingdom of ireland. in 1691 he succeeded to the command of the brigade of the prince of hesse (wounded at aughrim), and on the surrender of limerick was appointed commandant of the town. next year he served again in flanders as a brigadier, his brigade of mackay's division being one of those almost destroyed at steinkirk. at this battle cutts himself was wounded. for some time after this, lord cutts was lieutenant-governor of the isle of wight, but he returned to active service in 1694, holding a command in the disastrous brest expedition. he was one of carmarthen's companions in the daring reconnaissance of camaret bay, and was soon afterwards again wounded. he succeeded talmash, the commander of the expedition (who died of his wounds), as colonel of the coldstream guards. next year, after serving as a commissioner for settling the bank of antwerp, he distinguished himself once more at the famous siege of namur, winning for himself the name of "salamander" by his indifference to the heaviest fire. henceforward court service and war service alternated. he was deep in the confidence of william iii., and acted as a diplomatic agent in the negotiations which ended in the peace of ryswick. on the occasion of the great fire in whitehall (1698) cutts, at the head of the coldstreams, earned afresh the honourable nickname of "the salamander." a little later we find captain richard steele acting as his private secretary. in 1702, now a major-general, cutts was serving under marlborough in the opening campaign of the war of the spanish succession, and at the siege of venloo, conspicuous as usual for romantic bravery, he led the stormers at fort saint michael. his enemies, and even the survivors of the assault, were amazed at the success of a seemingly hare-brained enterprise. probably, however, cutts, who was now a veteran of great and varied experience, measured the factors of success and failure better than his critics. it was on this occasion that swift lampooned the lieutenant-general in his _ode to a salamander_. he made the campaign of 1703 in flanders, and in 1704, after a visit to england, he rejoined marlborough on the banks of the danube. at blenheim he was third in command, and it was his division that bore the brunt of the desperate fighting at the village which gave its name to the battle. blenheim was cutts's last battle. his remaining years were spent at home, and, at the time of his death, he was the holder of eight distinct political and military offices. he sat in five parliaments for the county of cambridge, and in queen anne's first parliament he was returned for newport in the isle of wight, for which he sat until the time of his death. he was twice married, but left no issue. cuvier, georges leopold chretien frederic dagobert, baron (1769-1832), french naturalist, was born on the 23rd of august 1769 at montbeliard, and was the son of a retired officer on half-pay belonging to a protestant family which had emigrated from the jura in consequence of religious persecution. he early showed a bent towards the investigation of natural phenomena, and was noted for his studious habits and marvellous memory. after spending four years at the academy of stuttgart, he accepted the position of tutor in the family of the comte d'hericy, who was in the habit of spending the summer near fecamp. it thus came about that he made the acquaintance of the agriculturist, a. h. tessier, who was then living at fecamp, and who wrote strongly in favour of his protege to his friends in paris--with the result that cuvier, after corresponding with the well-known naturalist e. geoffroy saint-hilaire, was appointed in 1795 assistant to the professor of comparative anatomy at the museum d'histoire naturelle. the national institute was founded in the same year and he was elected a member. in 1796 he began to lecture at the ecole centrale du pantheon, and at the opening of the national institute in april, he read his first palaeontological paper, which was subsequently published in 1800 under the title _memoires sur les especes d'elephants vivants et fossiles_. in 1798 was published his first separate work, the _tableau elementaire de l'histoire naturelle des animaux_, which was an abridgment of his course of lectures at the ecole du pantheon, and may be regarded as the foundation and first and general statement of his natural classification of the animal kingdom. in 1799 he succeeded l. j. m. daubenton as professor of natural history in the college de france, and in the following year he published the _lecons d'anatomie comparee_, a classical work, in the production of which he was assisted by a. m. c. dumeril in the first two volumes, and by g. l. duvernoy in three later ones. in 1802 cuvier became titular professor at the jardin des plantes; and in the same year he was appointed commissary of the institute to accompany the inspectors-general of public instruction. in this latter capacity he visited the south of france; but he was in the early part of 1803 chosen perpetual secretary of the national institute in the department of the physical and natural sciences, and he consequently abandoned the appointment just mentioned and returned to paris. he now devoted himself more especially to three lines of inquiry--one dealing with the structure and classification of the mollusca, the second with the comparative anatomy and systematic arrangement of the fishes, and the third with fossil mammals and reptiles primarily, and secondarily with the osteology of living forms belonging to the same groups. his papers on the mollusca began as early as 1792, but most of his memoirs on this branch were published in the _annales du museum_ between 1802 and 1815; they were subsequently collected as _memoires pour servir a l'histoire et a l'anatomie des mollusques_, published in one volume at paris in 1817. in the department of fishes, cuvier's researches, begun in 1801, finally culminated in the publication of the _histoire naturelle des poissons_, which contained descriptions of 5000 species of fishes, and was the joint production of cuvier and a. valenciennes, its publication (so far as the former was concerned) extending over the years 1828-1831. the department of palaeontology dealing with the mammalia may be said to have been essentially created and established by cuvier. in this region of investigation he published a long list of memoirs, partly relating to the bones of extinct animals, and partly detailing the results of observations on the skeletons of living animals specially examined with a view of throwing light upon the structure and affinities of the fossil forms. in the second category must be placed a number of papers relating to the osteology of the _rhinoceros indicus_, the tapir, _hyrax capensis_, the hippopotamus, the sloths, the manatee, &c. in the former category must be classed an even greater number of memoirs, dealing with the extinct mammals of the eocene beds of montmartre, the fossil species of hippopotamus, the _didelphys gypsorum_, the _megalonyx_, the _megatherium_, the cave-hyaena, the extinct species of rhinoceros, the cave-bear, the mastodon, the extinct species of elephant, fossil species of manatee and seals, fossil forms of crocodilians, chelonians, fishes, birds, &c. the results of cuvier's principal palaeontological and geological investigations were ultimately given to the world in the form of two separate works. one of these is the celebrated _recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupedes_, published in paris in 1812, with subsequent editions in 1821 and 1825; and the other is his _discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe_, published in paris in 1825. but none of his works attained a higher reputation than his _regne animal distribue d'apres son organisation_, the first edition of which appeared in four octavo volumes in 1817, and the second in five volumes in 1829-1830. in this classical work cuvier embodied the results of the whole of his previous researches on the structure of living and fossil animals. the whole of the work was his own, with the exception of the insecta, in which he was assisted by his friend p. a. latreille. apart from his own original investigations in zoology and palaeontology cuvier carried out a vast amount of work as perpetual secretary of the national institute, and as an official connected with public education generally; and much of this work appeared ultimately in a published form. thus, in 1808 he was placed by napoleon upon the council of the imperial university, and in this capacity he presided (in the years 1809, 1811 and 1813) over commissions charged to examine the state of the higher educational establishments in the districts beyond the alps and the rhine which had been annexed to france, and to report upon the means by which these could be affiliated with the central university. three separate reports on this subject were published by him. in his capacity, again, of perpetual secretary of the institute, he not only prepared a number of _eloges historiques_ on deceased members of the academy of sciences, but he was the author of a number of reports on the history of the physical and natural sciences, the most important of these being the _rapport historique sur le progres des sciences physiques depuis 1789_, published in 1810. prior to the fall of napoleon (1814) he had been admitted to the council of state, and his position remained unaffected by the restoration of the bourbons. he was elected chancellor of the university, in which capacity he acted as interim president of the council of public instruction, whilst he also, as a lutheran, superintended the faculty of protestant theology. in 1819 he was appointed president of the committee of the interior, and retained the office until his death. in 1826 he was made grand officer of the legion of honour; and in 1831 he was raised by louis philippe to the rank of peer of france, and was subsequently appointed president of the council of state. in the beginning of 1832 he was nominated to the ministry of the interior, but on the 13th of may he died in paris after a brief illness. see p. j. m. flourens, _eloge historique de g. cuvier_, published as an introduction to the _eloges historiques_ of cuvier; _histoire des travaux de georges cuvier_ (3rd ed., paris, 1858); a. p. de candolle, "mort de g. cuvier," _bibliotheque universelle_ (1832, 59, p. 442); c. l. laurillard, "cuvier," _biographie universelle_, supp. vol. 61 (1836); sarah lee, _memoirs of cuvier_, translated into french by t. lacordaire (1833).