HISTORY OF BOTANY. 307 



with which the highest considerations of practical philosophy 

 are associated with natural history. 



In the year 79 after Christ, Pliny fell a sacrifice to his desire 

 of knowledge ; in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, wishing to 

 contemplate as near as possible so sublime a spectacle, he 

 perished, suffocated by the sulphureous exhalations. 



Galen, in the 2nd century, wrote upon the medicinal quali- 

 ties of plants, but gave no descriptions. The love of the sciences 

 seemed, in the prosperous days of Rome, to be extinguished ; 

 the " Mistress of the world," corrupted by victories, and by 

 tyrants, had abandoned herself to luxury. The false philoso- 

 phy of the vanquished Greeks reigned in the schools of victo- 

 rious Rome, chasing away every trace of true knowledge. 

 Religious fanaticism had also its influence ; Christians and 

 Pagans destroyed libraries, and the monuments of literature, 

 sacred and profane. 



At this time the barbarians of the north and west, precipita- 

 ted themselves upon a country weakened by effeminacy. Italy, 

 ravaged by the Huns and the Vandals, became successively 

 the prey of the Heruli, of the Goths and Vandals. These 

 people, nursed in war, abhorred the sciences and arts, believing 

 they enervated courage, and they allowed not their children 

 to cultivate them. 



The Latin ceased to be the common language, but a corrupt 

 mixture of barbarous languages took its place ; the population 

 was. greatly diminished ; the country, formerly fertile and cul- 

 tivated, became sickly marshes and overgrown forests, inhabited 

 by wild beasts. 



In this dark period botany shared the fate of the other scien- 

 ces. The monks, strangers to the first elements of literature, 

 and yet passing for the lights of their age, spoke in a barbarous 

 language of the plants of Theophrastus and Pliny, commented 

 upon writings they were incapable of comprehending, and 

 mingled with their errors respecting facts, the most shameful 

 superstitions. 



LECTURE XLIV. 



History of Botany, from the eighth century to the discovery of 

 America. 



THE state of science was thus gloomy in the empire of the 

 West, when Charlemagne, a monarch endowed with a genius 



Galen The false philosophy of the Greeks received at Rome Barbarians 

 ravage Italy Language corrupted Botany shared the fate of other sciences. 

 Charlemagne. 



