46 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF M. DE MARTIUS. 



felt, spite of an immense accumulation of newly discovered forms. 

 These savans have not at all handled the species nor the higher rela- 

 tions between genera in an equally masterly way, which warrants me 

 in believing that a botanist may to a great degree be judged by the 

 value of his genera. Now the genera of M. de Martius are not con- 

 tested : to me they are excellent, and I have read also with pleasure 

 his specific descriptions, which are clear, well- written, and evidently 

 drawn up by a man who has either seen the plant in a living state, or 

 examined analogous ones in the Herbarium. 



Besides an author's chief works, he generally publishes pamphlets, 

 memoirs, etc., more or fewer; and if the writer is an active person and 

 lives in literary society, these his auxiliary works are numerous, and 

 possess a certain degree of merit. They are useful at the time, but 

 seldom are worth translation, and are always mingled with defects, 

 for the new ideas which they present are often hurriedly put forth, and 

 sometimes aim more at effect than at pure scientific truth. Perhaps a 

 journal requires the article to be ready by a certain day, or the printer is 

 waiting for work, or, as in the universities of the north, such tracts 

 were hastily prepared for the use of students, who demand clearness 

 and decision, rather than depth. At least, however the case may be 

 in Munich, I have known an ingenious theory to be proposed in France, 

 which was vehemently praised by a hundred or two of the students, 

 and which even caused a distinguished Professor to commit himself 

 further than was wise. The disciples of Linnaeus, when they gave to 

 the world all his dissertations, instead of a selection from them, did 

 him an ill turn ; and, generally speaking, it is with this small coin of 

 science and literature, that men of the highest merit make the worst 



speculations. 



M. de Martius could not always escape the trials of other men of 



letters. So far as I can judge by the perusal of German periodicals, 

 many persons, instead of being thankful for the instruction and the 

 mass of new and striking notions which their country received from 

 the subject of this memoir, have attacked him on points whereon it is 

 more probable that his critics were in error than himself. For instance, 

 he was reproached for having too lightly credited M. Schleiden's dis- 

 coveries of the pollen-tubes : and now it is M. Schlciden himself who 

 pronounces Martius a "dreamer/ 1 Yet the 'Voyage au BrtVil/ the 

 'Nova Genera/ the 'Flora Brasiliensis/ and the 'History of Palms 9 



