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science and literature, by their countenance, their at- 

 tention, and a free, not overwhelming, liberality. But 

 when princes become publishers of books, or directors 

 of academies, they generally do more harm than good. 

 They descend from their station, and lose sight perhaps 

 of their higher and peculiar duties, which consist in pro- 

 moting the general prosperity, peace, and liberty of their 

 subjects, under the benign influence of which, every art, 

 science, or pursuit, that can be beneficial to mankind, is 

 sure to flourish without much gratuitous assistance. 



Several of the immediate scholars of the illustrious 

 Swedish naturalist were planted in different parts of Ger- 

 many. Murray, to whom he entrusted the publication 

 of that compendious volume, entitled, Systema Vegeta- 

 bilium, and who printed two successive editions of the 

 work, was seated as Professor at Gbttingen. Giseke 

 was established at Hamburgh, and, after the death of 

 Linnaeus, gave to the world such an edition as he was 

 able to compile, from his own notes and those of Fabri- 

 cius, of the lectures of their late preceptor, on the Natu- 

 ral Orders of Plants. His ideas on this subject Linnaeus 

 himself always considered as tooimperfect to be published, 

 except in the form of a sketch or index, at the end of his 

 Genera Plantarum. The venerable patriarch, Professor 

 Jacquin, still survives at Vienna, where he, and his wor- 

 thy son, have eniiched botany with a number of splendid 

 and useful works. They have given to the public seve- 

 ral labours of the excellent practical botanist Wulfen, and 

 others, which might, but for their encouragement, have 

 been lost. The highly valuable publication of Host on 

 Grasses, is conducted on the planof Jacquin's works. His 

 Synopsis of Austrian plants is an excellent Flora, dis- 

 posed according to the Sexual System, as is the more 

 ample Tent amen Flora Germanica of the celebrated Dr. 

 Roth, one of the best practical European botanists, and 

 more deeply versed than most others in cryptogamic lore. 

 The best Linnaean Flora, as far as it goes, that the world 



