LINNEAN SOCIEXr OF LONDON. 55 



APPENDIX. No. 1. 



The following correspondence has oq more than one occa- 

 pion been mentioned at meetings of the Linnean Society, the 

 latest being 16th Dec, 1897. The whole transaction beiug 

 connected with the early history of the Society, makes it worthy 

 of being printed here. Camper was elected one of the first 

 Poreign Members, but declined it in the letter which heads the 

 correspondence. [B. D. J.J 



(Copy.) 



The Hague, June 22, 1788. 

 Sir, 



The proposal you forwarded me within your moste respected 

 letter dated Loudon the 12th surprised me very much. I should 

 esteem it to be a great favour to be one of the four Honourable 

 Members of a Society for the prosecution of Natural History 

 settled in your Metropolis. But it would do me little honour, 

 I fancy, to be it of a Linnean Society whatsoever. I look upon 

 Linneus as a mere Catalogist, and the most superficial Naturalist 

 I ever knew. He did in this century little honour to that science. 

 His sexual system of Botany however has some merits, tho' 

 not new. 



To return to your proposal ; I must beg leave to thank you, 

 and the Eight Honourable members of that Society for the 

 honour they intended to confer upon me, having net the least 

 inclination to bear a title of the Swedish author, tho' universally 

 accredited by the Natural Historians of Europe in these days. 



As I have given myself great pains on Quadrupeds, Birds, 

 Amphibious Animals and Cetaceous fishes, I discovered every 

 day his errors and his unpardonable ignorance. In Botany the 

 pompous Greek titles of his Classes, Ordines, &.c. impose upou 

 the ignorants. But consider the Cryptogamia and you'll confess 

 that his key to put plants under theyre proper ranks to be useless 

 for more than the half part of vegetables. 



I love Grtr-at Britain, and indeed I love it too much to suffer 

 the name of the well merited Pay or P. Hook to be effaced by 

 that of Linneus. Mr. Pennant is superior to the Swedisli 

 naturalist, tho' likewise superficial and defective. 



Why cannot the new Society be entitled for the prosecution of 

 Natural History ? or of the Naturae Curiosorium ? of the 

 Naturfor.^chende Preunde as in Berlin ? Why not the London 

 Society for Natural History ? or any other except that of 

 Linneus ? 



1 am very glad you have been so kind as to recall your name 

 to my mind, nothing could be more flattering for me, than to 

 deserve your esteem, and that of my dear friend Dr. Thomson, of 

 whom I have heard uuthing since 1 left England two years ago, 

 tho' I have sent him severall auatomicall observations and figures 



