434 Prof. Schultes on the 



of the animnl creation, would be the work of half a century. 

 It is really incredible that a nation, possessed of the greatest 

 conquests, and making the most extended discoveries in all 

 parts of the world, should have collected so scantil}' for its 

 public Museum: and the more so, as England boasts of men 

 of the most distinguished character in all branches of Natural 

 History. How is it possible that the British can allow the two 

 neighbouring nations whom they look down upon in many 

 respects, to excel them in this way as much as they are out- 

 done by them in others? This enigma would be to me per- 

 fectly inexplicable, if a solution to it were not afforded by the 

 state of the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where 

 the science of Natural History is at so low an ebb. 



Except the periodical works on Botany, and the Second 

 Part of the publication on the genus Pitms by Count Lambert, 

 we neither saw nor heard of any novelties in this department ; 

 except that we were informed that twenty sheets of Wallich's 

 and Carey's Flora Coromandeliana had arrived in London. 

 Mr. * * * * therefore was wrong, when he asserted vvith a 

 haughty look three years ago, "A Second Part of this work will 

 never appear !" 



We have visited the celebrated flower-market of London ; 

 of which no German who has not seen it, could form a pro- 

 per idea. What chiefly struck us is, that the greatest rarities 

 and most trifling articles are here exposed for sale together, 

 and that both are eagerly bought. Were such things to be 

 carried to the Marche mix Fleurs at Paris, not a pennyworth 

 of them would be sold. But by the two flower-markets of 

 these two principal cities of Europe, an estimate of the differ- 

 ent character of their inhabitants may be formed. The wealthy 

 and respectable Englishman, who is a connoisseur, will pur- 

 chase nothing that is common ; for if pretty, he has it already 

 in his garden; — and the poor Londoner who cannot afford to 

 buy what is beautiful, will still obtain, if possible, something 

 green to decorate the window of his dark little attic*, and give 

 his last farthing for a bit of verdure. The opulent French- 

 man, who values all objects only as they please the eye, with- 

 out reference to their being common or scarce, is willing to 



• Perhaps from the custom of the ancient Romans (for the English still 

 retain traces of the manners of that people) : " jam in fencstiis stds jilcbs 

 urbana in imagine hortorum quotidiana ocu/is rims prcEbebant, aittequain pra. 

 ^gi prospectus omnes coegit midlitudinis innwneratcB sceva lalrocinatio." — 

 Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. cap. 4. By this " prasfigi prospectus " is not that most 

 shameful of all im[)osts, the window-tax comprehended, by which the 

 l)eople are in a measure deprived of that most universal of all Nature's gifts 

 —light? 



