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of the science, and acting up to tlie spirit of their master's principles, 

 as opportunities for so doing were afforded by the increasing intelli- 

 gence of the age, laid the foundation for the high position among the 

 natural sciences, now held by botany in this country. 



Sir J. E. Smith, for example, after he had widely extended the circle 

 of cultivators of this pleasing pursuit, by the precise and elegant style 

 of his ' Introduction,' wherein the Linnaean artificial system is lucidly 

 explained, in his ' Grammar of Botany,' a subsequent work of equal 

 merit and utility, proceeded to unfold the principles of that more pre- 

 cise mode of investigating the intimate structure of plants, upon which 

 is founded a plan of classification, whereby the " strong connexions, 

 nice dependencies " of the various members of the Vegetable King- 

 dom are sought to be exhibited by those who look beyond the shadow 

 and endeavour to grasp the substance of the object of their pursuit. 



The high position occupied by Robert Brown as a botanist is too 

 well known to require any eulogy from us; we may, however, be 

 allowed to express regret that he has favoured the world with so few 

 examples of his transcendant abilities and superior attainments in a 

 science he is so well fitted to elucidate and explain. 



Of Dr. Lindley, we need say no more than that we believe him to 

 have been the first public teacher of botany who boldly ventured to 

 break through the trammels of custom, by adopting in his lectures at 

 University College, that mode of study which has already done so 

 much towards removing from our favourite pursuit the opprobium of 

 being merely a science of words without ideas, — a useless repertory 

 of names without meaning. Dr. Lindiey's ' Synopsis of the British 

 Flora,' originally intended chiefly for the use of his own classes, toge- 

 ther with his other works, prepared the way for that more general 

 recognition of the superior value of the natural method over an artifi- 

 cial system, which Dr. Drummond so deeply deplores. 



" Nomina si nescis, perit et cognitio rerum," is a Linnaean axiom 

 the truth of which no one will dispute. But names alone are not — 

 cannot be — the sole end and aim of philosophic research. The dis- 

 covery of the name of an unknown plant is one object proposed by 

 the natural as well as by the artificial method of investigation ; and 

 to this, as one important branch of the science, we have never 

 objected : on the contrary, we have ever contended, that to acquire no 

 further knowledge of botany than the ability to determine the names 

 of the various plants met with in our daily walks, is to acquire as it 

 were another sense. But the knowledge of intimate structure and of 

 mutual relationship which attend the use of the natural method, amply 



