470 



jumble of the ideas of Rivinus, Tournefort, and others. 

 This work is also faulty in the neglect of specific defini- 

 tions, so that its plates and occasional descriptions are 

 alone what render it useful ; nor would it perhaps, but 

 for the uncommon abundance of rare species, be consulted 

 at all. 



We may glance over the botany of Italy, to whose 

 boundaries we have thus been insensibly led, as the eye 

 of the traveller takes a bird's-eye view of its outstretched 

 plains from the summits of the Alps. We may pass from 

 Turin to Naples without meeting with any school of di- 

 stinction. The northern states are not without their 

 professors and patrons of botany, nor are their nobles 

 destitute of taste in various branches of natural know- 

 ledge. The names of a Castiglione of Milan, a Durazzo 

 and Dinegro of Genoa, and a Savi of Pisa, deserve to be 

 mentioned with honour, for their knowledge and their 

 zeal. The unfortunate Cyrillo, and his friend Pacifico, 

 at Naples, were practical botanists. There is also a rising 

 school, of great promise, at Palermo. But since the time 

 of Scopoli, Italy has contributed little to our stock of in- 

 formation ; nor are the latter publications of this eminent 

 man, while he resided at Pavia, commensurate in import- 

 ance or merit with those earlier ones, the Flora, and En- 

 tomologia, Camiolica, which have immortalized his name. 

 Scopoli, who at first adopted a system of his own, had 

 the sense and liberality, in his second edition, to resign 

 it, in favour of what his maturer experience taught him 

 to prefer, the sexual system of Linnaeus. 



Spain and Portugal claim our attention ; the former 

 for being the channel through which the gardens of Eu- 

 rope have been, for some years past, enriched with many 

 new Mexican and Peruvian plants ; and likewise as the 

 theatre of the publication of some important books, rela- 

 tive to the botany of those countries. In speaking of 

 American botany, we have mentioned the Flora Peru- 

 viana, whose authors, Ruiz and Pavon, rank deservedly 



