*-. 



8 



that no man would again disgrace himself by following in the 

 track of that most wretched of all compilers. 



Eagerly then we ordered Dr. Dietrich's work, although 

 its high price might have deterred a more prudent man. Our f 



readers may then imagine our astonishment when we found 

 it even worse than the work of Sprengel himself ; filled 

 with typographical blunders, which were tolerable, and with 

 systematical omissions, which are intolerable. The author 

 assures us that he has diligently used the " Vimariensis atque 

 Goettingensis ingens librorum thesaurus," in collecting mate- 

 rials for his work ; and as one of them is among the finest 

 libraries in the world, he must therefore have had access to all 

 that is most important in systematical literature. With what 

 kind of care he has used such materials, if he has used them 

 at all, is apparent from this, that he has only half examined 

 the Botanical Register and the hosts of new species described 



that 



i 





Roxburgh's Flora Medica, the original edition, 

 not, as far as we can discover, even quoted in it, that English 

 botanical books, so important in regard to new species, are in 

 general overlooked, Hooker's icones, for example, one of the 

 most useful of all works, and published in 1836, not having 

 been consulted in 1 840, although abounding in species un- 

 described ; and in short, that the whole book is a mere book- 

 seller's job, against which every body should set their face, by 



I ? fusm ? t0 W it- Nor does it appear that the books which 

 the author has really consulted have been examined with the 

 commonest care. For example : the genus Tournefortia was 

 critically examined by Chamisso, who in 1839 published the 

 result of his observations in the Linnaea ; and yet the valuable 

 corrections of this author are passed by, and the species which 

 he then shewed to be spurious, are allowed to remain just the 



SaD1 wi? • e LinnaBa had never appeared. 



Why will not some industrious botanist "at Berlin or 

 v lenna, with talent, patience, and the materials to be found in 

 those great seats of learning, undertake a task, of all others the 

 most easy to a good systematist, and the results of which would 

 be so valuable to every body? As a speculation it would amply 

 remunerate its projectors, and as a work of science, although 

 it did not contain one word of original matter, it might be an * 



addition to the reputation of any man 



A 





