469 



botanist substitute in the place of this contrivance? A 

 series of numbers, burthensome to the memory, destitute 

 of information, accommodated to his own book only, and 

 necessarily liable to total change on the introduction of 

 every new-discovered species ! At the same time that 

 he rejected the luminous nomenclature of his old friend 

 and fellow-student, who had laboured in the most inge- 

 nuous terms to deprecate his jealousy, he paid a tacit 

 homage to its merit, by contending that the honour of 

 this invention was due to Rivinus. In this he was not 

 less incorrect than uncandid, the short names of Rivinus 

 being designed as specific characters, for which purpose 

 Haller knew, as well as Linnaeus, they were unfit. Useful 

 specific characters he himself constructed on the plan of 

 Linnaeus, with some little variation, not always perhaps 

 for the better, as to strictness of principle, but often 

 strikingly expressive. Here, as in every thing connected 

 with practical botany, he shines. The most rigid Linnaean, 

 whose soul is not entirely shrivelled up with dry apho- 

 risms and prejudice, must love Haller for his taste and 

 enthusiasm, and the Flora of Switzerland as much for his 

 sake as its own. No wonder that his pupils multiplied, 

 and formed a band of enthusiasts, tenacious of even the 

 imperfections of their master. The line of demarcation 

 is now no longer distinctly drawn between them and the 

 equally zealous scholars of the northern sage. The 

 amiable and lamented Davall strove to profit by the la- 

 bours of both. The Alpine botanists of France and Italy 

 have served to amalgamate the Swedish and the Helve- 

 tian schools. The Flora of Dauphiny by Villars is nearly 

 Linnaean in system, and the principles of the veteran Bel- 

 lardi of Turin are entirely so; though he has been, in 

 some of his publications, obliged to conform to the me- 

 thod of his late preceptor, the venerable Allioni, who, in 

 spite of all remonstrance, had the ambition of forming a 

 system of his own. His Flora Vedemontana is disposed 

 according to this system, an unnatural and inconvenient 



