8 Rev. Mr Ramsay's Biographical Notice of 



ceum aquaticum panicula avenacea;"' and such is the usual number 

 of words by which his plants are named. In many cases two words 

 are used, but often the descriptions are much longer than those 

 I have quoted at random. It is recorded, that Sir W. Watson, 

 an eminent physician and botanist, and a pupil of Ray's school, 

 had a memory so tenacious, that he could refer to any plant in 

 Ray's works, by its lengthened appellation ; and was looked on as 

 such a prodigy, as to be termed the " living lexicon of plants ;"" 

 but to those who were not blessed with such a memory, the re- 

 ference to plants must have been most discouraging ; and we 

 can imagine the overwhelming astonishment with which the 

 vulgar and genteel ignorant must have listened, when he was 

 pouring forth these " sesquipedalia verba'''' to designate a grass, 

 a weed, or a moss. Sir W. lived to see the introduction of 

 the Linnaean nomenclature ; and though he may have lost 

 some distinction he enjoyed for his powers of memory, yet 

 how much must he have admired the precision, simplicity, 

 and elegance which that nomenclature introduced. In fact, 

 without this, the science would have been soon lost in a chaos of 

 words. 



The Linnaean system was early, though not immediately, 

 adopted in this country. When Linnaeus visited England, he 

 found Dillenius, the botanical professor of Oxford, too much 

 involved in Ray's system, upon which he had constructed his 

 own works, and Sir H. Sloane, the great patron of natural his- 

 tory, too old and too much prejudiced, to adopt the bold opinions 

 of the yOung Swede. The adoption of the system in the public 

 instructions of Cambridge and Edinburgh, in the former by 

 Professor Martyn, and in the latter by the late eminent Dr J. 

 Hope, is the aera of the establishment of the Linnaean system 

 in Britain, — a system which, we may safely say with Dr Pulte- 

 ney, " gave the author of it a literary dominion over the vege- 

 table kingdom, which, in the rapidity of its extension, and the 

 strength of its influence, had not, perhaps, been paralleled in 

 the annals of science." Hudson, Lightfoot, and Withering, wrote 

 Floras on this system ; but there can be no doubt that Sir J. E. 

 Smith was the most accomplished disciple of this school, and 

 the best expounder of its principles. The Flora Britannica 



3 



