Williams's Vegetable World. 263 



of facts on this peculiar and remarkable class of animals. 

 Copies of these lectures seem only purchasable at the Bristol 

 Institution : this is to be regretted, as naturalists remote from 

 that neighbourhood might wish to possess them, were they 

 acquirable without difficulty. 



Williams, Charles : The Vegetable World. (Author of " Art 

 in Nature, and Science anticipated.") 18mo, 288 pages, in 

 cloth, and with an elegantly engraved frontispiece. London, 

 1832. 4s. 



. This is a compiled enumeration and description of the 

 beauties and riches of the more popularly interesting or 

 useful plants of the world. It is the very best one we have 

 ever seen. It is filled with most interesting facts, in such 

 abundance as to testify the very extensive reading and great 

 diligence of the writer; while they are adapted both with 

 judgment and taste. The device used for determining the 

 order of succession of the numerous facts, many of which have 

 little or no relation to each other, are conversations between a 

 father and mother, and their son and daughter. We know not 

 what better plan could have been adopted, although of necessity 

 the parents speak nought but pearls, and the children question 

 and animadvert very sagaciously. This conversational plot 

 has, however, one advantage: it admits, without opposing the 

 object of the book, which is simply to instruct and delight the 

 youthful, here and there a good deal of discursive prattle on 

 subjects that have an incidental relation to the plants spoken 

 on. Thus, to the descriptive notices of the cotton tree are at- 

 tached much information on the mode and extent of cotton- 

 spinning as now practised ; to the account of the mahogany 

 tree, notices on the artificial applications of its wood, the pro- 

 cess of cutting veneers with circular saws driven by steam ; and 

 so on in many other instances. In short, although the book 

 is not positively faultless, we much approve it ; and parents, 

 we are sure, will approve it too. The writer has a religious 

 tincture of feeling, which is occasionally, but never forcefully, 

 induced. There is a blunder in the quotation from Dr. 

 Arbuthnot, p. 49., worth noticing:—" I call it not mine, but 

 me," should be, " I call it mine, not me." It may be well for 

 the writer to correct this error in one of his future volumes ; 

 for, it appears, he is engaged in producing a series of volumes 

 on popular subjects, adapted for youth : the next is to be on 

 " The Treasures of the Earth." 



Hooker, W. J"., LL.D. &c. &c. : King's Professor of Botany 

 in the University of Glasgow. The English Flora of Sir 



s 4 



