456 



Monlhly Review of Literature, 



[Oct. 



physiology as well as the arrangement of 

 plants. It pretends to no novelty, and only 

 collects into a small and convenient volume 

 what, in introductory books, are not usually 

 thus assembled. The reader will find, un- 

 der distinct heads, — I. A Sketch of Jie 

 History of Botany to the days of Linna;us 

 and Jussieu ; — II. The Elementary Organs 

 of Plants, with delineations of those organs 

 and their standard varieties ; — III. Tlie 

 Lanyxiage of Botany ; — IV. Linnjeus's 

 Artificial System, according to the Parts of 

 Fructification ; — V. Linuc-eus's Natural 

 System, arranged, according to certain 

 striking particulars, into 58 orders, or fami- 

 lies ; — VI. Jussieu's Natural System — an 

 arrangement subsequent to Linnfeus's, 

 founded chiefly upon a consideration of the 

 anatomical structure of plants, and their 

 corresponding characters ; — VII. The Ana- 

 tomy and Physiology, with general Remarks 

 on the peculiar Fluids connected with the 

 Economy of Plants ; — and, VIII. The 

 Harmonies of Plants — by which is meant 

 the relative agreements, profusely and beau- 

 tifully displayed in the economy of vegeta- 

 bles, and the adaptation of plants to other 

 purj)oses. In tliis last division, many in- 

 teresting facts are brought together, and 

 the subject is well illustrated. " Provi- 

 dence has not," he states, " regulated the 

 fecundity of plants by their size or strength, 

 but to the ratio of animal species for whose 

 food they are destined;" which he illus- 

 trates thus : — " The pannic, the smallest 

 millet, and several other gramineous plants, 

 so useful to animals and to inan, produce, 

 beyond comparison, more seeds than many 

 plants much larger and much smaller than 

 themselves. There are many which perpe- 

 tuate themselves by their seed once a year ; 

 but the cMck-weed, which affords suste- 

 nance, at every season of the year, to the 

 small birds of our climate, is renovated by 

 its seed seven or eight times, without being 

 interrupted even by winter." 



Memoirs of the Reformers, British and 

 Foreign, by the Reo. J. W. Middleton, 

 3 vols. \\\mo. ; 1829. — As mere narratives, 

 these little volumes may be acceptable 

 enough to numbers ; for we know not where 

 so full an account, as to bare facts, and the 

 common estimate of them, in so small a 

 compass, of so many of the Reformers, is 

 to be found. But they are the representa- 

 tions of a pnrtizan. They are written in 

 a spirit of confiding admiration, and credit 

 is every where given for untainted purity in 

 all the motives that impelled them all — no 

 scrutiny is ever instituted. The author 

 would evidently think sucli a course profana- 

 tion. The individuals are all angels ; and 

 every thing tending to shew any of them 

 were men of like passions with ourselves, is 

 carefully kept out of sight. They are con- 

 sidered as the especial agents of Providence, 

 before whom events gave way to further 

 their agency. We do not, of course, by 



this, deny that they were agents of Provi- 

 dence ; for we believe all created beings are 

 strictly and unexceptably so. What we 

 mean is, that there is really no sound reason 

 to suppose these men, any of them, were 

 taken out of the common course of things, 

 and invested with more than mortal and na- 

 tural powers. They were men, in the most 

 favourable view, who acted according to 

 their convictions and their temperaments ; 

 and many of them braved danger, and bat- 

 tled with obstructions in prosecution and 

 diffusion of principles, which seemed to them 

 a duty incumbent upon themselves, and of 

 service to the world ; while others, obvious- 

 ly, first or last, were actuated by the coarser 

 considerations of aggrandizement or of dis- 

 tinction. Now we see no reason upon 

 earth — no becoming one, we mean — why 

 their motives and measures should not be 

 freely canvassed ; we know no good that is 

 to be accomplished by a contrary course, 

 and plainly much that is bad must arise 

 from it. The only useful purpose of his- 

 tory and biography is to make the conduct 

 of eminent individuals come in aid of our 

 experience ; and if that conduct is to be 

 partially, and therefore unfairly exhibited, 

 so far are the very things which are des- 

 tined by nature to assist our conclusions per- 

 verted, and the only valuable purpose of 

 presenting them to us defeated. 



The writer of these volumes— written, 

 doubtless, with wliat he considers the best 

 intentions, but surely with a mistaken ob- 

 ject — is perpetually apologizing, instead of 

 fairly discussing, as far as facts and motives 

 are to be got at, and estimating their ge- 

 nuine value. Cranmer, for instance — why 

 should he, in the teeth of known facts, and 

 the invincible evidence of circumstances, be 

 represented more like an angel than a mor- 

 tal, when his conduct, in repeated instances, 

 was contemptible and scandalous, and, in 

 the person of an adversary, would have been, 

 we venture to say, so described by this very 

 writer ? But he, like thousands, filled with 

 professional prejudices, considers the end as 

 sanctifying the means ; for, on any other 

 principle, to justify and purify Cranmer is 

 impossible. The very act which introduced 

 him to Henry was that of a time-serving 

 person, catching at an opportunity of bring- 

 ing himself to the notice of the sovereign. 

 He gave himself up, readily and coarsely, 

 as his willing tool. He continued to do so, 

 after receiving the grand prize of his sub- 

 serviency, through the remainder of Henry's 

 reign — he submitted to his caprices — Jie 

 furthered his iniquitous acts — he shared in 

 the plunder of them — he did and undid at 

 command. Think, too, of the wretched 

 Lambert's case. In Edward's reign, when 

 he had almost every thing, ecclesiastically, 

 his own way, we find him burning heretics, 

 even a woman (IMr. M. makes not the slight- 

 est allusion, of course, to these things) ; 

 and at the end of it, caballing with Nor- 

 thiunberland in liis political schemes ; and. 



