122 Bibliographical Notices. 



similar nature are of such a kind as to afford no room for great or- 

 ganic changes. The book is emphatically a " Manual " ; and most of 

 the modifications and improvements introduced in the present edition 

 tend to make it answer to its name even more thoroughly than before. 

 We are aware that some persons would always have preferred to have 

 had it more expanded and less concise ; but in this view they forget 

 the important distinction between a Manual or Synopsis and a com- 

 plete descriptive Flora. We have no work on British botany of the 

 latter class more recent than Smith's ; and, excellent as that is in 

 many respects, it is quite inadequate to our present wants : but it is 

 delusive to expect that any mere enlargement of diagnoses with supple- 

 mentary small-talk, however valuable or interesting, can really make 

 up the deficiency. An author warmly devoted to his science exercises 

 no small degree of self-control in forbearing to dilate on points which 

 have specially engaged his attention : but the wisest plan for him is 

 to make the sacrifice at once and confine himself to essentials, or at 

 least to such conditions as are fully compatible with portability and 

 salient clearness. A formidable difficulty however still remains : a 

 book written in the vernacular and avowedly intended for the hand 

 rather than the library must necessarily have somewhat of a popular 

 character : whose interests then ought to be consulted, the botanist's 

 or the botanophilist's ? Should facility of discovery of names, or strict 

 scientific truth, be the primary object? The question is not very 

 easily answered : it is too much the fashion just now to lavish pha- 

 risaical contempt upon " mere collectors " : surely their shallow know- 

 ledge of plants is better than none at all, and we have little chance of 

 drawing out from among them recruits to the ranks of true botanists, 

 if we scornfully leave them to the guidance of popular scribblers, 

 scarcely better informed than themselves. On the other hand, it is 

 manifestly wrong, though the occasional practice of illustrious 

 authors may be pleaded in excuse, to sacrifice natural to definite and 

 systematic but artificial arrangements, or to describe the facts of 

 nature — not as they are, but — as they appear to the inexperienced 

 eye, without giving warning of the illusion. Mr. Babington seems 

 always to have had in view the benefit of both classes of readers, but 

 more distinctly now than before : there is an increase of scientific 

 rigour; confessedly natural genera are not fused together because 

 each happens to have only one or two British representatives ; but 

 English terms are in several cases substituted for Latin ones, new 

 subdivisions of genera introduced for the sake of convenience, and 

 alphabetical indices of species appended to the accounts of Rubus, 

 Hier actum, Salix, and Car ex. All the descriptions have been care- 

 fully weeded of superfluous words or observations, and fewer syno- 

 nyms, authorities, and localities are given ; we observe also that the 

 abbreviations are increased and some convenient terms borrowed from 

 Mr. Woods : so that, notwithstanding the number of species disco- 

 vered or discriminated in the last four years and the addition of an 

 account of the Characese (occupying above four pages), there is an 

 increase of only six pages upon the 2nd edition. It is almost super- 

 fluous to say that the descriptions are effectually revised through- 



