Cultivation of Botany in England. 363 



and solidity. The cases in which the animals, chiefly birds, 

 are preserved, are made of the wood of Flindersia australis. 

 The rich library of this establishment contains many valuable 

 works, which are wanting to the great universities, academies, 

 and national colleclions of the continent. The hall in which 

 the meetings of the Society are held, struck us as being a far 

 finer apartment than the House of Commons ; and we even 

 thought this latter very inferior to the House of Commons at 

 Munich, which is only used every third year ; while again the 

 Hall of Assembly of the Academy at Munich is a mere lum- 

 ber-room compared with that of the Linnaean Society. The 

 busts of Linnaeus and Banks, and of our countryman Trew, 

 and the portraits of Solander and Pulteney, ornament this ele- 

 gant apartment. All that we were, unfortunately, able to see 

 of Sir J. Banks's herbarium and library was from the win- 

 dows of the Linnaean Society's house ; for Sir Robei't Brown 

 was gone to Naples, and had taken with him the key of the 

 Banksian collection*. We were more successful at Count 

 Lambert's, though with the disappointment of not finding at 

 home this venerable sage of seventy years, who has made such 

 sacrifices to botany. He was at his country-seat of Boyton 

 in Wiltshire, some eighty miles, we were told, distant from 

 the capital. Mr. Don, however, had the key to Lambert's 

 sanctum; and his goodness afforded us a view of its botanical 

 treasures, accumulated from all parts of the world. The col- 

 lection of plants contains above 36,000 species; and if its in- 

 crease continues with its former giant strides, it will soon ex- 

 ceed every other. This immense herbarium, of which the 

 noble proprietor has given some information in the second 

 part of his magnificent work on the genus Pinus, consists of 

 no fewer than fifty herbaria, each of which would singly be 

 worth to a botanist more than any pearl in the Mogul's crown. 

 I shall here only mention a few of them, besides the great 

 English one, of the Count's own formation; viz. the plants of 

 Afzelius and Balduinus; the collection made by Baxter in New 

 Holland; the herbaria of Broussonet, Brown (the author of 

 a work on the botany of Jamaica), of Lord Bute, Hill, and 

 Caley (the latter had spent seven years in New Holland); of 

 Cavanilles, Clarke (who had accompanied Cripps); Durandes, 

 Forster, Flintlers, Forsyth, Fraser, Gouan, Hamilton (for- 



' Wc really think that it would have been quite an cvcrstretching of 

 that public- fi|)irite<l liberality, with which both the Ibrnier and the present 

 proprietor oCthe Banksian collection have ever opened its treasures to the 

 use of science, il" Sir Robert liroitm, when poinj; to Italy, liad thought it 

 necessary to leave the key of Sir J. BanksV library and herbarium in the 

 tioor. — El). 



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