328 Domestic Notices : — Engla7id. 



Gardeners will recollect that Mr. Drummond, of Cork, our correspondent, 

 and an active intelligent man, is gone before them. Mr. Drummond, in 

 a year or two, will be made a justice of the peace ; and, as things advance, 

 vyill be promoted to other public offices. As for any thing that can be pre- 

 dicated of Australia, it may, in thirty years, with the consent of the parent 

 country, become a cluster of states like the union of North America, 

 Mr. Drummond, being young enough, may live to become a member of the 

 Australian congress of I860. — Cond. 



Art. III. Domestic Notices. 

 ENGLAND. 



The London University. — On the 30th of April Professor Lindley de- 

 livered his introductory lecture on botany, in a clear, distinct, and audible 

 voice, to a full class-room. After giving a short history of botany, and cha- 

 racterising the Linnean system as superficial, though well calculated for the 

 times in whicli it appeared, and the Jussieuean system as profound and phi- 

 losophical, and alone being worthy of being taught in the present state of 

 science, he announced his intention of adopting that system as the foundation 

 of his course of instructions. He had been told that he would not succeed 

 in teaching botany by the Jussieuean system ; but he asked how it happened 

 that botany was so taught in Paris, and whether the French were not un- 

 questionably the first botanists in Europe ? In speaking of modern botanists, 

 he assigned the highest place to Mr. Brown, and mentioned Mr. Knight as 

 the first vegetable physiologist in Britain ; and as an instance of the import- 

 ance of physiology to horticulture, he referred (rather unfortunately in our 

 opinion) to the success with which that gentleman had cultivated the pine- 

 apple. We cannot too much applaud Mr. Lindley for adopting the natural 

 system, which we believe has already been done by Professor Henslow at 

 Cambridge ; it will mark an era in the history of botany in this country, and 

 redound to the honour and advantage both of Mr. Lindley and of the Lon- 

 don university. Even if the Linnean system cannot be done without, or, 

 as most botanists think probable, will never be wholly dispensed with as an 

 easy index for determining the names of individual species, still it is worthy 

 of the ambition of a man of Mr. Lindley's learning, talents, and industry, to 

 teach that system which is avowedly the most difficult ; the Linnean being in 

 truth so easy, that any one who has a book introductory to it, and leisure 

 to walk in the fields, may learn it by himself. We have not a doubt of Mr. 

 Lindley's complete success in every sense in which the word can be taken, 

 and we desire it with all our hearts for his high spirit. Perhaps it may be 

 considered fortunate for the university, that Dr. Hooker declined the pro- 

 fessorship of botany, as we believe that gentleman still teaches by the old 

 method at Glasgow, and of course would have adopted it in London. We 

 are happy to observe the buildings of the university proceeding rapidly ; to 

 learn that most of the classes are well attended ; and to hear that there is no 

 want of subscribers for shares, and of donations to the library and museum. 

 We have no doubt there will soon be two or more such universities in the 

 metropolis, and at least one in Bristol, Liverpool, York, Hull, Birmingliam, 

 Manchester, Newcastle, and, in short, all the large towns in the kingdom ; 

 and the day, we trust, is not far distant when there will be a sort of minor 

 university, a school in which all initiatory and general science and morals 



