388 NEW fublicatio:ns. 
In 1834 he was elected an h"t>norary member of the Berlin Academy, and in 1853 
a corresponding member of the French Institute. In 1857 he received from the 
President of the Eoyal Society the E.oyal Medal, in recognition of his labours. 
Dr. Lindley was of average height, with dart-brown hair, and ruddy com- 
plexion. He had only one serviceable eye, the other having been useless from 
infancy. His figure was erect, and his walk firm. He was hot in temper and 
impatient of opposition, but on the other hand he had the warmest of hearts. 
In order to assign to Lindley his exact place in our science, a careful study 
of all his writings would be necessary. But we may say, it appears to us that 
Lis greatest merit consists in having successfully established in this country the 
Natural System. He also had a happy knack of popularizing and making 
clear the labours of others^ but his own ideas were often crotchety. He was a 
caj)ital follower, but an indifferent leader ; and often placed himself in positions 
from which there was no escaping. As long as he stuck closely to the syste- 
matic writings of the leading botanists, his faults were scarcely aj^parent ; 
but when in his * Vegetable Kingdom' he tried to rearrange anew all the 
]S"atural Orders according to his own ideas, he failed so completely that though 
m 
the book, from its many acknowledged merits, was in everybody's hands, nobody 
has ever accepted its arrangement, and many of the groupings are now held 
to be purely artificial. The Orchids were his peculiar favourites, and the 
various works he wTote on them will probably be regarded as the most favour- 
able specimens of what he has done and could do ; and let us own that there 
are few botanists who would not be glad to have written them, as there are 
few whose botanical career has been more useful than that of John Liudlcy. 
For many of the above facts we are indebted to the * Gardeners* Chronicle,' 
to which they are understood to have heen supplied by Dr. Lindley's son. We 
have purposely abstained from discussing whether Lindley or Hooker was the 
head of botanical science in Britain, because that has been made a party ques- 
tion which could never have been raised as long as their great contemporary 
Brown was alive, and which is much better left to the decision of generations 
that supplant us. 
NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
The ElemmU of Botany for Families and Schools. Teatli edition. 
Kevised by Thos. Moore, F.L.S.,etc. London : Longman and Co. 
A usable manual to any science is often difficult to find, because it 
is difficult to produce. When the author introduces into an elemen- 
tary treatise his own theoretical opinions, he too often forgets the chief 
end of his undertaking, and while he produces a readable book, it is 
cue geueraOy worthless as a texl book. Professor Haughton's recently 
published ' Introduction to Geology/ is a striking instance of this : in 
mK 
