Miscellaneous. 81 



many brilliant works due to these illustrious authors, those of Mr. 

 Brown should have particidarly fixed the attention and commanded 

 the majority of the Academy, will not astonish our readers, accus- 

 tomed as they are for the most part to the study of his works. It 

 will he sufficient for us to recall them briefly, insisting upon results 

 without paying attention to titles ; for Mr. Brown's memoirs gene- 

 rally perform a great deal more than they promise, and it is almost 

 always a specialty that he takes as a starting-point to ascend from 

 it to the most comprehensive generalizations, by an artifice perhaps 

 analogous to that which is recommended by the precepts of the 

 poetic art. 



"!Mr. Brown early abandoned the practice of medicine for botany, 

 towards which he was attracted by a peculiar taste and aptitude. 

 He accompanied Capt. Flinders to Australia, and on his return to 

 Europe occupied himself with the publication of the Flora of New 

 Holland. The first volume of the ' Prodromus' of this Flora, un- 

 happily the only one that has appeared, revealed to the scientific 

 world a great botanist, whom France was the most prompt in recog- 

 nizing. It is true that the author was the first, out of our own 

 country, to step out of the narrow circle in which the followers of 

 the Linnsean system had shut themselves up, and to employ the more 

 capacious method which had its origin in France. But his merit 

 was not confined to recognizing its superiority ; he treated it like a 

 master ; and the creator of the Natural Method had the satisfaction 

 of knowing that he was thoroughly comprehended, by the modifica- 

 tions which his system underwent in its adoption. 



" T'nquestionably, for a skilful botanist, no study could be better 

 fitted to exercise and to demonstrate his sagacity than that of the 

 plants of New Holland, — plants so diiferent in external form from 

 those of the other great continents, although the greater number of 

 them are allied by the more important characters of their organiza- 

 tion, — plants which a|)pear to us, to use the expression of an inge- 

 nious botanist, as it were under a mask. In a series of important 

 memoirs treating of these vegetables, and of those of Africa, of various 

 natural groups, Mr. Brown has continued to furnish us with a multi- 

 tude of new ideas on families, their limits, their relation to each 

 other, and their composition. And while he throws light on a mul- 

 titude of special points, he treats incidentally, or even in a note, on 

 general questions of the highest order, as, for example, on the inflo- 

 rescence (Memoir on CoinpositcB), on the identity of vegetable 

 organs (Memoir on Rafflesiu), on the questions which interest 

 botanical geography (various Memoirs) ; or he takes pleasure in 

 showing the value of characters previously neglected, such as those 

 of prsefloration (Prodr. Fl. Nov. Holl.), or of the stomata (Pro- 

 teaceae Nov. IIoU.). 



"Of late years, the question of the generation of plants appears to 

 have fixed Mr. Brown's attention, and there have resulted several 

 memoirs, short, indeed, but full of observation {Kinyia — Orchid, and 

 Asclepiad.), in which he makes known the double element of the 

 problem, the organization of the ovule on the one hand, and of the 



Ann. H^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. To/, ii. 6 



