486 



philosophical principles. Of these the most eminent are 

 the celebrated Bernard de Jussieu, the contemporary of 

 the earlier days of Linnaeus ; and his nephew Antoine Lau- 

 rent de Jussieu, the pride and the ruler of systematic 

 botany at present ill France. The views and the perfor- 

 mances of these great men lead us to a new branch of our 

 subject, which indeed we have had in our contemplation 

 from the beginning of this essay, the exposition of the 

 principles of a natural scheme of botanical classification, 

 as hinted, and imperfectly sketched, by Linnaeus, and 

 brought to the perfection of a regular system by the Jus- 

 sieus. 



Previous to our entering on this detail, and the remarks 

 to which it will give rise, we must conclude all that be- 

 longs to the former part of our undertaking, by giving 

 some account of those botanists who have formed and 

 maintained a Linneean school in France. We must shel- 

 ter ourselves under the broad banner of truth when we 

 observe that these have, till very lately, been almost the 

 only French botanists that have supplied us with any 

 practical information ; and their labours have been useful 

 in proportion as they have commendably shaken off the 

 prejudices of their predecessors. Of this last proposition 

 Duhamel is a witness, though we may perhaps excite 

 some surprise in classing him among Linneean botanists. 

 His preface to his Traitt des Arbres sufficiently shows 

 how fearful he was of being taken for such, and yet how 

 he was held by vulgar prejudice alone, to the nomencla- 

 ture, or rather the generical opinions, of Tournefort. He 

 tells us, while he adopts these, that his judgement went 

 with Linneeus, whom he follows in all new discoveries. 

 The plan of his book, confined to hardy trees and shrubs, 

 justifies his use of an alphabetical arrangement, in pre- 

 ference to any system, unless he had thought sufficiently 

 well of Tournefort's to prefer that. But he has prefixed 

 to his work, as a practical method of discovering scienti- 

 fically what it contained, no other than a sexual classifi- 



