339 



Flora,' without the trouble of wading through Dr. Steele's fifteen 

 points of comparison. 



Then again, we have no more friendly feeling than our author 

 towards Dr. Lindley's attempt to Anglicize the scientific names of 

 plants ; for many of his so-called English names are more barbarous 

 and far more difficult to pronounce than those he would supersede : 

 nor have we any greater affection for his changes in the names of cer- 

 tain orders, which can only be defended on the score of uniformity 

 in nomenclature. 



We can by no means admit, as we have said before, that there is 

 any decline in a popular taste for botany in this country ; on the con- 

 trary, we believe it to be on the increase : and if medical students are 

 not so enthusiastic in the pursuit of botanical knowledge as they were 

 wont to be, we believe their apparent coolness to arise from the mul- 

 tiplicity of subjects they are now compelled to attend to, rather than 

 from any additional difficulties being thrown in their way by the 

 introduction of a diflferent mode of teaching. 



In drawing our remarks to a close, we would beg to assure our 

 readers, as well as the author of the ' Observations,' that we have 

 endeavoured to steer clear of everything that could be misconstrued 

 into misrepresentation. If, in some {qv! instances, our remarks may 

 have appeared rather severe, we have at least the satisfaction of know- 

 ing that in penning them we have throughout kept in view the whole- 

 some advice of the poet, 



" Nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice !'' 



And we can only regret that the author, in his zealous advocacy of the 

 artificial system of Linnaeus, should have 'pursued a course which is 

 as little adapted to do good service to the cause he is defending, as it 

 is calculated to injure the opposite system. The Linnaean system has 

 ever received more injury at the hands of its injudicious friends than 

 from those who have openly and strenuously opposed it. That there 

 is such a thing as a natural system, we as firmly believe as we do that 

 there is a sun which enlightens and warms the earth ; and if botanists 

 have not yet succeeded in discovering it, their failure is to be attri- 

 buted to their futile attempts to construct such a system, instead of 

 endeavouring to trace out that which has existed from the creation of 

 all earthly things — a system fiamed by the Creator himself. Hence 

 has arisen all the confusion, the tinkering, and patching of which our 

 author complains with so much justice. But, in the words of Dr. 

 Lindley, " consistency is often only another name for obstinacy," and 



