OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 231 



SO little, or made so few statements that had to be recalled, or even 

 recast ; and of no one can there be a stronger regret that he did not 

 publish more. 



With this character of mind, and while carefully sounding his way 

 along the deep places of a science the philosophy and grounds of which 

 were forming, day by day, under his own and a few contemporary 

 hands, Brown could not have been a voluminous writer. He could 

 never have undertaken a Systema Regni Vegetahilts, content to do his 

 best at the moment, and to take upon trust what he had not the means 

 or the time to verify, — like his contemporary, DeCandoUe, who may 

 worthily be compared with Brown for genius, and contrasted with him 

 for the enthusiastic devotion which constantly impelled him to publica- 

 tion, and to lifelong, unselected, herculean labor, over all the field, for 

 the general good. 



Nor could Brown ever be brought to undertake a Genera Planta- 

 rum, like that of Jussieu ; although his favorable and leisurely position, 

 his vast knowledge, his keen discrimination, and his most compact 

 mode of expression, especially indicated him for the task. Evidently, 

 his influence upon the progress of Botany might have been greater, or 

 at least more immediate and more conspicuous. Yet, rightly to estimate 

 that influence now, we have only to compare the Genera Planiarum of 

 Endlicher with that of Jussieu, — separated as they are by the half- 

 century which coincided with Brown's career, — and mark how largely 

 the points of difierence between the two, so far as they represent 

 inquiry, and genuine advancement in the knowledge of floral struc- 

 ture, actually originated with him. Still, after making due allowance 

 for a mind as scrupulous and cautious as it was clear and profound, 

 also for an unusually retiring disposition, which even in authorship 

 seems to have rendered him as sedulous to avoid publicity as most 

 writers are to gain it, it must be acknowledged that his retentiveness 

 was excessive ; and that his guarded published statements sometimes 

 appear as if intended — like the anagrams of the older mathemati- 

 cians and philosophers — rather to record his knowledge than to reveal 

 it. But this was probably only in appearance, and rather to be 

 attributed to his sensitive regard for entire accuracy, and his extreme 

 dislike of all parade of knowledge, — to the same peculiarity which 

 every where led him to»condense announcements of great consequence 

 into short paragraphs or foot-notes, and to insert the most important 



