Arrangements of Plants. 17 



equivocal testimonies of its excellence. It is true, exceptions 

 have been taken against particular parts, and alterations sug- 

 gested in departments of minor importance, even by the very 

 editors of his works. To have expected perfection in the first 

 outline of a science, the materials of which are continually in- 

 creasing, would be unreasonable ; and these alterations, in- 

 stead of derogating from, do homage to the system which they 

 correct. The period however is now arrived which is to try 

 its stability. — A rival has of late risen up, and has already be- 

 come truly formidable. — Under the patronage and by the in- 

 fluence of a neighbouring nation, this rival now comes for- 

 ward, and demands universal homage. Its advocates are not 

 only numerous, but learned; not only acute, but earnest. — That 

 their influence is daily increasing cannot be doubted ; and the 

 crisis is now arrived when their opinions must be either sub- 

 mitted to, or resisted. 



Notwithstanding the favourable reception given to the sex- 

 ual arrangement of plants, it is well known to have made but 

 little progress through the southern nations of Europe ; and 

 the French in particular refused implicitly to admit the novel 

 doctrines of the Swede. In Botany, Tournefort continued to 

 be their guide. In Zoology, Buffbn directed their steps ; and 

 their example induced the Italians, and in some degree the 

 Germans, to follow the same track. Fx'om various circum- 

 stances, and particularly from the great accession of indivi- 

 duals of the vegetable kingdom to which the arrangement of 

 Tournefort is wholly incompetent, his authority has declined ; 

 but Linnaeus has not always gained the followers that Tourne- 

 fort has lost. Other leaders have risen up, and proposed ar- 

 rangements and nomenclatures of plants wholly different from 

 those of Linn££us; and in particular, the successive eff()rts of 

 the distinguished family of Jussieu liave raised a standard to 

 which many of the most eminent botanists of the present day 

 think it an honour to resort. 



The system of the Jussieus, as originally proposed by Ber- 

 nard, and afterwards illustrated and amplified by Antoine 

 Laurent de Jussieu, has higher pretensions than that of Lin- 

 naeus, and professes not only to unite together in their natural 

 orders such plants as are related to each other, but to form a 

 complete arrangement, in which every known plant jnay be 

 found in its proper situation, and every unknown plant may 

 when discovered take its place among its congeners. A sy- 

 stem, in short, which unites all the advantages of a natural 

 arrangement with the elucidation of a technical one ; and 

 compri:>cs within itself all that is requisite to botanical sci- 



'N.H. Vol. 7. No. 37. Jan. 1830, D ence. 



