8 INTRODUCTION. 



Linnseus wrote a noble book of universal Natural History 

 in Latin. It is one of the permanent classical treasures of the 

 world. And if any scientific man thinks his labours are worth 

 the world's attention, let him, also, write what he has to say 

 in Latin, finishedly and exquisitely, if it take him a month to 

 a page.* 



But if which, unless he be one chosen of millions, is assur- 

 edly the fact his lucubrations are only of local and tempo- 

 rary consequence, let him write, as clearly as he can, in his 

 native language. 



This book, accordingly, I have written in English ; (not, by 

 the way, that I could have written it in anything else so there 

 are small thanks to me) ; and one of its purposes is to inter- 

 pret, for young English readers, the necessary European Latin 

 or Greek names of flowers, and to make them vivid and vital 

 to their understandings. But two great difficulties occur in 

 doing this. The first, that there are generally from three or 

 four, up to two dozen, Latin names current for every flower ; 

 and every new botanist thinks his eminence only to be prop- 

 erly asserted by adding another. 



The second, and a much more serious one, is of the Devil's 

 own contriving (and remember I am always quite serious 

 when I speak of the Devil,) namely, that the most current 

 and authoritative names are apt to be founded on some un- 

 clean or debasing association, so that to interpret them is to 

 defile the reader's mind. I will give no instance ; too many 

 will at once occur to any learned reader, and the unlearned I 

 need not vex with so much as one : but, in such cases, since 

 I could only take refuge in the untranslated word by leaving 

 other Greek or Latin words also untranslated, and the nomen- 

 clature still entirely senseless, and I do not choose to do 

 this, there is only one other course open to me, namely, to 

 substitute boldly, to my own pupils, other generic names for 

 the plants thus faultfully hitherto titled. 



As I do not do this for my own pride, but honestly for my 



* I have by happy chance just added to my Oxford library the poet 

 Gray's copy of Linnaeus, with its exquisitely written Latin notes, exenv 

 plary alike to scholar and naturalist. 



