NOTICES OF BOOKS. 349 
quantity of albumen and the size of the embryo), while characters of 
greater importance, but less easily defined, and in consequence less 
easily made manifest to the beginner, if not entirely neglected, are 
underrated. 
This is searcely the place to explain the reasons on which we found 
our conviction, that with regard to natural arrangement we have, in 
many respects, to regret in the * Vegetable Kingdom’ a progress in a 
direction which it will be necessary to retrace. It is however the 
less necessary to enter into details, because our principal objection 
to the prominence given to these universally rejected views in an ele- 
mentary work, is that they have led the author fo an arrangement 
Which wants that superiority over systems previously known and gene- 
rally used among systematic botanists, which would compel its adop- 
tion by every candid botanist. We do not doubt that ere long a sy- 
stem of Alliances, such as Dr. Lindley has so ably originated, will be 
discovered, far superior to any at present known; and every attempt 
to improve our present arrangement is undoubtedly praiseworthy and 
of the utmost interest. It will however, we believe, be universally 
conceded that the rejection of systems of acknowledged merit, when 
prompted by the desire to promulgate botanical views such as those 
referred to above, which, after many years' probation, have been repu- 
diated by botanists in general, is, to say the least of it, undesirable in 
a work which is indispensable both to beginners and proficients. We 
are the last to wish that Dr. Lindley should refrain from the expression 
of the most untenable of his conclusions; on the contrary, there is, even 
in the most contradictory of them, much beyond mere originality ; they 
evidence deep knowledge and great experience, and every one of them 
may be studied with profit; but we think that a fair exposition of 
them all is not incompatible with the scope az object of a * Vegeta- — 
ble Kingdom" arranged in accordance with those laws of affinity which 
nine-tenths of the greatest botanists of Europe and America consider 
established, and unshaken by Dr. Lindley's arguments. We trust — 
that in a future edition,—which we hope and believe is not distant, — 
our author will not only reconsider his evidence, but re-examine his 
materials, particularly in cases where his opinions are diametrically op- 
posed to those which are universally recognized ; and we are fully con- 
vinced that the necessary and careful study will, in many instances, 
lead him to attach less importance to many of the general characters 
