UNSYSTEMATIC KNOWLEDGE. 36S 



and higher up, and ramified. It loves a sandy soil, and has no leaf 

 whatever." 



The books of Aristotle and Theophrastus soon took the place of the 

 Book of Nature in the attention of the degenerate philosophers who 

 succeeded them. A story is told by Strabo 6 concerning the fate of the 

 works of these great naturalists. In the case of the wars and changes 

 which occurred among the successors of Alexander, the heirs of Theo- 

 phrastus tried to secure to themselves his books, and those of his mas- 

 ter, by burying them in the ground. There the manuscripts suffered 

 much from damp 'and worms ; till Apollonicon, a book-collector of 

 those days, purchased them, and attempted, in his own way, to supply 

 what time had obliterated. When Sylla marched the Roman troops 

 iuto Athens, he took possession of the library of Apollonicon ; and the 

 works which it contained were soon circulated among the learned of 

 Rome and Alexandria, who were thus enabled to Aristotelize' on 

 botany as on other subjects. 



The library collected by the Attalic kings of Perganius, and the 

 Alexandrian Museum, founded and supported by the Ptolemies of 

 Egypt, rather fostered the commentatorial spirit than promoted the 

 increase of any real knowledge of nature. The Romans, in this as in 

 other subjects, were practical, not speculative. They had, in the times 

 of their national vigor, several writers on agriculture, who were highly 

 esteemed ; but no author, till we come to Pliny, who dwells on the 

 mere knowledge of plants. And even in Pliny, it is easy to perceive 

 that we have before us a writer who extracted his information princi- 

 pally from books. This remarkable man, 8 in the middle of a public 

 and active life, of campaigns and voyages, contrived to accumulate, by 

 reading and study, an extraordinary store of knowledge of all kinds. 

 So unwilling was he to have his reading and note-making interrupted, 

 that, even before day-break in winter, and from his litter as he tra- 

 velled, he was wont to dictate to his amanuensis, who was obliged to 

 preserve his hand from the numbness which the cold occasioned, by 

 the use of gloves. 9 



It has been ingeniously observed, that we may find traces in the 

 botanical part of his Natural History, of the errors which this hurried 

 and broken habit of study produced ; and that he appears frequently 

 to have had books read to him and to have heard them amiss. 10 Thus, 



Strabo, lib. xiii. c. i., 54. T AptororAiv. " Sprengel, i. 163. 



Plin. Jim. Epist. 3, 5. 10 Sprengel, i. 163. 



