188 REVIEW. [June, 



'^On the whole, for a first and hasty examination of the locality, 

 we had not much reason to be dissatisfied, and doubtless a more 

 careful investigation would be attended with greater results." 



The Friend, a Religious and Literary Journal for the Society of 

 Friends. April, 1859. London : A. W. Bennett. 



In this number of ' The Friend ' there is an appreciatory re - 

 view of the Life of Linnaeus, by Miss Brightwell, a work. already 

 noticed at some length in the ' Phytologist.' 



" Honour to those to whom honour is due." Few are they 

 who have the hardihood to deny that Linnaeus is not an honoured 

 name. He may have had indiscreet panegyrists and over-fond 

 admirers, as he has in modern times had critics more distin- 

 guished for flippancy than good-natured geniality ; but we are 

 glad to find that his eulogists are on the increase, and his de- 

 tractors are quiet. Botanists may now admit their obligations 

 to this eminent naturalist without counting stamens and styles, 

 and puzzling out the mysteries of Syngenesia jEqualis, S. Neces- 

 saria, S. Frustranea, S. Segregata. 



The reviewer estimates the importance of Linnseus's inven- 

 tions at a high rate. Few indeed will difler from him. Modern 

 philosophers are unanimous in adopting specific names and in 

 imitating the precise and intelligible method of description in- 

 vented and practised by this great renovator of natural science. 

 This is more than was conceded by the ablest of his contempo- 

 raries. Haller, the most eminent botanist of the eighteenth 

 century, saw no merit in the nomenclature of Linnaeus, but re- 

 proached him for what is now universally acknowledged to have 

 been his great merit. Magna est Veritas et prcevalebit ; but this 

 is a work of time. 



"From what we know and see of London lecturers on botany," the re- 

 viewer continues, " we can scarcely realize the fact that a lecturer on botany 

 could render himself or his subject so attractive that his audience should 

 o-radually increase in number until it had exceeded fifteen hundred ; and 

 should then only be limited by the size of the building in which the lecture 

 •was delivered ; yet such was the fact ; such the power of fascination pos- 

 sessed by the lectui'er, that his class rose to the extraordinary number of 



