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slender pretensions of the French naturalist to that 

 honour. Unfortunately these two great men enter- 

 tained but little respect for each other. In France 

 Torniforte held the first place in the department of 

 Botanical knowledge. Buffon himself was no bota- 

 nist, but as a zoologist so extolled by his countrymen, 

 that a statue was erected to him in his own lifetime, 

 on whose pedestal was an inscription that declared 



HIS GENIUS EftUAL TO THE MAJESTY OF NATURE. 



For such a man, perhaps, Linnaeus was born too far 

 to the North ! and for such admiration in his own 

 country, he may have thought it not decorous to ad- 

 mire any talent out of it. 



Linnaeus named many genera of plants to com- 

 memorate persons who had added to the stock of bo- 

 tanical knowledge; and a strong feeling of his natural 

 character is very discernible in this exercise of his 

 judgment. One genus he named after a scholar of his, 

 whose name was Browall, of obscure birth, and hum- 

 ble fortune, and called it Browallia depressa. After- 

 wards this same man, by a favourable change of cir- 

 cumstances, became a bishop, and in this rank he forgot 

 his former condition, and his former friends j Linnaeus 

 then named another species of the same genus Brow- 

 allia elata. A plant, which has its leaves in pairs, he 

 named Bauhinia, in honour of two brothers, John 

 and Gaspard Bauhins. The name of Banistcria he 

 gave to a climbing plant, in remembrance of a M. 

 Banister, who lost his life by falling from a rock, 

 which he was climbing, in botanical pursuits. 



