836 



that few of our countrymen have reached, and of which scarcely one 

 has hved to enjoy the full fruition and reward. 



Add to this the author's office as a principal manager of the Royal 

 Gardens at Kew, where Mr. Smith, the first pteridologist in the coun- 

 try, has laboured so long and so successfully in making collections 

 both of living and dried ferns, and we must acknowledge that the 

 ' Species Filicum ' comes before the public with every advantage that 

 circumstances can bestow. 



The first point of interest attached to the publication of a work on 

 ferns by so celebrated a writer, was the arrangement to be adopted. 

 It was a matter of great curiosity with botanists to know whether the 

 laborious researches of Presl and John Smith would be availed of, 

 the obsolete system of Swartz and Willdenow revived, or a new me- 

 thod more comprehensive and convenient than either be raised as a 

 superstructure on the united bases of both, combining the merits of 

 both, and dismissing the errors of both. No such opportunity has 

 ever before existed : the author, as he himself asserts, had "the power 

 of examiningthe almost countless specimens, preserved either in his 

 own peculiarly rich herbarium, or in the many others, as well public 

 as private, to which he has been allowed access. The opportunities 

 thus afforded * * * have proved of the utmost utility ; 

 they have enabled him to arrive at results to which no other means of 

 investigation could have led." 



From this quotation it will be evident that our high estimation of 

 the author's capability is by no means superior to his own, but who- 

 ever peruses the preface, although perhaps fully participating in the 

 author's ideas of his own advantages, will have cause to regret that 

 he should have gone out of his way to point out the very trivial er- 

 rors of fellow-labourers : we do not say that they are not errors, 

 but they have scarcely any connexion with what Sir William has be- 

 fore him ; and it therefore appears uncourteous and unkind to drag 

 them before the public. We heartily wish that the pages occupied 

 by this preface had been devoted to the more legitimate object of 

 giving a synoptical table of the author's own views : Sir William 

 Hooker is too fond of exhibiting what appears to us uncalled-for 

 jealousy ; uncalled-for, because his own great acquirements can af- 

 ford that he should give to every labourer in the field of science his 

 just modicum of praise, without restricting it to those who are dead 

 to the public if yet alive in the body, who can never enter the field of 

 literature as competitors with himself. Throughout the preface not 

 a word occurs explanatory of the arrangement about to be adopted. 



