826 WANT AND EXCESS 



iedge of nature, or in applying that knowledge, the 

 assistance which is given, although given with the 

 very best intentions, is often as much a hinderance 

 as a help. The greatest hinderance of all is the 

 want of a popular language. The species of plants 

 that have been discovered as native in Britain, and 

 on the shores of the British seas, amount to nearly 

 four thousand. The half of these have not English 

 names ; and of those that have, the names are mostly 

 local, and do not find a place in the mother language 

 of the country. The vast number of foreign plants 

 which have been introduced have of course no Eng- 

 lish names, as it has not been the fashion with our 

 botanists to Anglicise the learned names, in the way 

 that they have been Gallicised by the French. Thus 

 the people of different countries, and often of dif- 

 ferent parts of the same country, are unable to con- 

 verse about the greater number of the plants, unless 

 they shall first make themselves masters of the 

 technical language of botany, and that can only be 

 done by a very limited number. Even in that there 

 is more difficulty than there should be; for the 

 plants have so many names and synonymes, that if 

 the whole were written in alphabetical order, the 

 number of species would appear to be almost forty 

 thousand ; yet all these names occur in the books, 

 so that they who read for a knowledge of plants 

 must know what they all stand for ; and thus the 

 nomenclature of botany is nearly ten languages. 

 The names, too, are such that a common English 

 reader cannot attach a particular meaning to any 

 one of them, and there are many to which no reader 

 can attach any meaning, although he were master 

 of all the languages that are spoken, or ever were 

 spoken under the canopy of heaven, because they 

 are "made-up names," and have no reference to 

 any thing discoverable about the plant. As a spe- 

 cimen, we may mention a few of the names of the 



