commonly called George, a distinguished naturalist and circumnavigator, the son of John Reinhold Forster, was born at Dantzig in 1754, and enjoyed, in his earliest youth, the advantage of his father's assiduous and affectionate instructions, by which he profited so rapidly, that he was capable, at the age of ten years, when he went with his father into Russia, of ascertaining the species of a plant by comparing it with the Linnaean description. He was for a short time at a school in Petersburg. Upon his arrival in London, he was at first placed in a merchant's counting-house, but soon found his health unequal to the employment, and followed his father to Warrington, where he continued his studies at the academy with so much application, that he became a perfect master of the English language, and otherwise distinguished himself by the strength of his memory and the vigour of his imagination, at the same time that he assisted his father in giving lessons in French, and in completing a variety of translations of voyages and travels. He also accompanied his father, together with Sparman, in the arduous engagement of making all kinds of physical observations in the circumnavigation of the globe; and he was particularly employed in delineating the various objects of natural history which were discovered. After his return he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; but he soon quitted England to settle at Paris. In 1779, however, he was appointed professor of natural history at Cassel; and, in 1784, he was nominated to a similar situation in the University of Wilna, where he took a degree of doctor of physic; but he found little satisfaction in residing amongst a people so imperfectly civilized. The empress of Russia had engaged him to take an important part in a new voyage of discovery which she meditated; but the design was abandoned upon the commencement of the war with the Turks. He was next invited by the elector of Mentz to accept the appointment of president of the university newly established in that city, and he was residing there at the time when the French army entered it. Being a declared republican in his political principles, he was dispatched as Forster, an envoy to Paris to solicit the incorporation of Mentz with the French republic; but during his absence the Prussian troops retook the city, and he lost the whole of his property, including his numerous manuscripts. He had married Miss Theresa Hayne, and had one daughter as early as 1788; but, at a subsequent period, his wife's conduct gave him great reason for uneasiness; and though he affected to despise what he called the prejudices of social life, and to excuse her infidelity, and even attempted to facilitate her union with a more favoured admirer, still the affair in reality affected him deeply, and he resolved once more to leave Europe, as if in search of the waters of oblivion; and he was actually preparing for a voyage to Thibet, when his health was subdued by the ravages of a scrofulous disorder, and he died on the 13th February 1792. Besides the assistance which he rendered his father in many of his literary undertakings, he was also the author of a variety of separate publications under his own name.

1. A Voyage Round the World in his Britannic Majesty's Ship Resolution, commanded by Captain James Cook, during the years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775, 2 vols. 4to, Berlin, 1779, 1780, and 3 vols. 8vo, 1784. The style of this work is rather more animated and poetical than that of the official account of the voyage; the second volume is considered as the best written, and the freest from affectation and false sentiment. 2. Mr Wales, the astronomer of the expedition, published some remarks on the work, which occasioned a Reply to Mr Wales's Remarks, 8vo, London, 1778, in which the author declares that his father had no concern whatever in the book, but he admits that he had committed some inaccuracies. 3. A Letter to the Earl of Sandwich, 4to, London, 1779. 4. His Answer to the Authors of the Literary Journal of Göttingen exhibits considerable warmth of language, but candidly admits some errors; it excited some further animadversions from Professor Meiners, who declared himself the author of the criticisms. 5. In 1787 he published at Berlin, in 4to, A Translation of Captain Cook's Third Voyage, performed in 1776-1780, with an introduction and other additions. 6. A Description of the Gentiana saxosa, Swedish Trans. 1777, p. 183. 7. Life of Dr Dodd, 8vo, Berlin, 1779. 8. Preface to Sparrman's Travels, 8vo, Berlin, 1784. 9. He undertook, together with Professor Lichtenberg, the publication of the Göttingen Magazine, which was continued from 1780 to 1785, and published in it, amongst other essays, A Description of the Red Creeper, or Certhia coccinea of Ouwylgeer, i. vi. p. 346. 10. Experiments with Vital Air, vol. iii. ii. p. 281; examining its effects on glow-worms. 11. A Decad of New Plants, N. Act. Upsal, vol. iii. 1780, p. 171. 12. On Pygmies, Hessische Beyträge, vol. i. p. 1, 1785. 13. History and Description of the Bread-Fruit Tree, p. 208, 844; also separately, 4to, Cassel, 1784. 14. Florula Insularum Australium Prodromus, Svo, Göttingen, 1786. 15. Fasciculus Plantarum Magellanicarum, Commentat. Soc. Gott., vol. ix. p. 13. 16. Plante Atlanticae, p. 46. 17. Miscellanies, or Essays on Moral and Physical Geography, Natural History, and Moral Philosophy, 6 vols. Svo, Leipzig and Berlin, 1789-1797; the last two volumes are posthumous, and chiefly of a political nature. 18. Picture of the Lower Rhine, Brabant, Flanders, Holland, England, and France, taken in the year 1790, 3 vols. Svo, Berlin, 1791-1794; Dutch, Haarlem, 1792, 1793; French, called Voyage Philosophique, 2 vols. Svo, Paris, 1795, 1796. This work contains many interesting remarks on manners and on the arts, showing that the author possessed very extensive information, as well as originality of talent; but there is too much affectation of sentiment, and an injudicious display of hostility to Great Britain. 19. Historical Remembrances of the Year 1790, Svo, Berlin, 1793. There are also several political pamphlets of a temporary nature, which could add little or nothing to their author's fame; and a few scattered memoirs in different periodical publications. He was also concerned in the Collection of Voyages published by Professor Sprengel; and, together with Pallas and others, in an edition of Martini's Dictionary of Natural History. Indeed, his life, though short, was one continued scene of literary activity; but his application to the labour of compilation was too unremitting to allow him to concentrate the whole force of his mind on the performance of any one great original work of genius. The Sketches of the Mythology and Customs of the Hindoos were written by another author of the same name.

(Life by Pougens; J. R. Forster in Jacobi's Annals, and in the Dedication of his Enchiridion; Eyries in Biographie Universelle, vol. xv. 8vo, Paris, 1816; Aikin's General Biography, vol. iv. 4to, London, 1808; Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, vol. xiii. 8vo, London, 1814.)