232 Martins, on the Life and Labors of De Candolle. 



the contemplation of nature ; chained to his little inkstand, from 

 which he scattered through the world with luminous, aphoristic 

 geniality, his thoughts, his anticipations of higher wisdom, — al- 

 most always expressed in the language of Scripture, and with 

 an emphatic unction. 



How entirely different was De Candolle. He is the man of 

 the council, the man of the people. His power was felt as well 

 in the Genevan republic, as in the republic of letters. No move- 

 ment in the political world is to him a matter of indifference. 

 He notices every change, and marks its relations to the progress 

 of science. If he open his lecture room, it is not merely active 

 young men who sit attentive at his feet. The elite of the fash- 

 ionable world and of the higher walks are among his auditors; 

 men and women of his own city, and numerous travellers from 

 distant lands, who, between Paris and Rome, crowd the high- 

 way of European travel, passing through Geneva, all felici- 

 tate themselves upon having listened to his eloquent discourses. 

 Whilst the northern student of nature meditates in solitude by 

 the light of his study lamp, the pride of the learned world of 

 Geneva, in his saloon, surrounded by the comforts of a half Eng- 

 lish, half French establishment, receives the visits of rich or 

 celebrated friends, and of his fellow citizens, who talk of the 

 movements of the political world, consult with him on the inter- 

 ests of their country, or listen to the voice of some enlightened 

 citizen of the world, with lively interest in his far-reaching plans. 



Thus are portrayed, in the persons of Linnaeus and of De Can- 

 dolle, not merely the state of the natural sciences, but also the 

 more universal features of the spirit of their respective eras, as 

 exhibited in the school and in life. 



But in order to complete the portrait of our departed friend, I 

 must now give a more particular account of those literary works 

 which he commenced soon after his return to Geneva, when his 

 mind had attained its full maturity ; those works which especially 

 authorize us to term him the Linnaeus of our time ; I mean his 

 universal system of plants, an undertaking which was the result 

 of the observations of many years, of repeated visits to the great 

 collections of plants in Paris and London, and of a diligent cor- 

 respondence with all the considerable botanists of the world, 

 which he began to publish in the year 1818, and continued 

 to labor upon with unexampled diligence until the end of his 



