482 



and notes, enables us very often to correct mistakes, even 

 of that great man, many of which would be unaccountable 

 without the means of thus tracing each to its source. At 

 the same time, the acquisition of materials to which he 

 never had access, tends to improve and augment the hi- 

 story of what he had left imperfect. His language, his 

 definitions and characters were, for some time, held so 

 sacred, that they were implicitly copied, even though 

 manifestly inapplicable, in some points, to the objects to 

 which they were referred. Synonyms were transcribed 

 from his works by Rose, Hudson, Curtis, and even Gaert- 

 ner, (we assert it on the positive proof of errors of the 

 press, copied in the transcribing,) without reference to the 

 original books, to see whether such synonyms, or their 

 accompanying plates, agreed with the plant under consi- 

 deration. The example of Dr. Solander first led the wri- 

 ter of this to avoid such a negligent and unfaithful mode 

 of proceeding ; yet he has ever considered as sacred the 

 very words of Linnaeus, where they require no correction. 

 They are become a kind of public property, the current 

 coin of the botanical realm, which ought not, with impu- 

 nity, to be falsified or adulterated. To them we hope to 

 be pardoned if we apply the words of the poet, 



" The solid bullion of one sterling line, 

 Drawn to French wire, would through whole pages shine." 



Of this it is needless to quote examples. We must be 

 every day more and more sensible of the value of the Lin- 

 naean style, in proportion as the number of those who can 

 attain it is evidently so very small. By the light of our 

 master alone can the science, which he so greatly advanced 

 and refined, be preserved from barbarism, while long and 

 tedious, loose and feeble, ill-contrasted and barbarously- 

 worded definitions, press upon it from various quarters. 

 New terms are invented to express old ideas ; names and 

 characters are changed for the worse, to conceal the want 

 of new discoveries ; and students are often deterred from 



