GENERIC CHARACTERS. 367 



been the first among English writers to set a 

 contrary example, had I not fortunately been 

 furnished with peculiar materials for the pur- 

 pose. 



The beauty and perfection of these essen- 

 tial generic characters consist in perspicuity, 

 and a clear concise style of contrasting them 

 with each other. All feebleness, all super- 

 fluity, should be avoided by those who are 

 competent to the purpose, and those who are 

 not should decline the task. Comparative 

 words, as long or short, without any scale of 

 comparison, are among the grossest, though 

 most common, faults in such compositions. 



The natural character seems to have been, 

 at one time, what Linnaeus most esteemed. 

 It is what he has used throughout his Genera 

 Plant arum, a work now superseded by the 

 essential characters in his Systema Vegeta- 

 biliam, and therefore in some measure laid 

 aside. The disadvantages of the natural cha- 

 racter are, that it does not particularly ex- 

 press, nor direct the mind to, the most im- 

 portant marks, and that it can accord only 

 with such species of the genus as are known 

 to the author, being therefore necessarily im- 



