Cultivatio)i of Botany in England. SS3 



and kindness which are pecuUar to great and well-educated 

 men ; and which in this truly noble person are heightened by 

 such charms of gentleness and affability, as cannot fail to at- 

 tract to him most forcibly even such individuals as have but 

 once enjoyed the privilege of his society. The books of Lin- 

 naeus, with their margins full of notes in the handwriting of 

 the immortal Swede; many valuable MSS. of his, not yet 

 published ; the Linnsan Herbarium, in the same order and 

 even occupying the very cases which had contained it at Upsal, 

 (little as the old-fashioned form of these cabinets corresponds 

 with the elegant arrangement of Smith's museum) ; the col- 

 lection of insects, shells and minerals, which had belonged to 

 this second creator of Nature ; — all these are arranged and 

 preserved by Sir James with a scrupulous care which almost 

 borders on a kind of religious veneration. The relics of Mo- 

 hammed are not enshrined with more devotion in the Kaaba 

 at Mecca, than are the collections of Linnaeus in the house of 

 Sir J. E. Smith at Norwich. Whilst we bless the Providence 

 that has placed these treasures of the Northern Prophet in the 

 hands of such a Caliph, from whom (as Sir James, alas ! has no 

 family) they will pass into the possession of some valued friend 

 or person who knows how to appreciate and feel their high 

 value, and who will respect them as national property, — -we, of 

 the continent, must ever lament that they have fallen to the lot 

 of the ^Hoto disjunctos orbe Britannos" as it is, unhappily, im- 

 possible for every botanist to make a voyage to this island, 

 here to compare his specimens with those of Linnaeus: *' Non 

 cuivis homini coniingit adire Corinthum." And yet, long as a 

 tribunal hotanicum or a synodus botanica shall continue to be 

 earnestly desired for that common good, which is as much the 

 object of the botanist as of any other child of Adam, so long 

 must we wish that the following plan, which is the only prac- 

 ticable remedy to the distant situation of Linnaeus's collections, 

 should be adopted. — We would propose that in every place 

 where botany is pursued with energy, a kind of Filial or Branch 

 Herbarium (if 1 may so call it) should be established; consist- 

 ing of such plants only as have been accurately and faithfully 

 compared with the original collections of Linnaeus, Thunberg, 

 Pallas, Vahl, Desfontaines, Ruiz and Pavon, Willdenow, 

 Humboldt, &c. The excellent Sir J.E. Smith would willingly 

 open his treasures, and allow every facility to those who held 

 these views. 



If there should arise any opulent botanist on the continent, 

 or if any of the Governments there should institute a complete 

 herbarium, possessing all tlie Liiuitt*an species, (which it would 

 not be diflicult at the present day to gather together,) and if 



N.S. Vol. G. No. 35. AW 182y. 2 Z such 



