124 PROSERPINA. 



Bethlehem verily remind us of Christ's Nativitj', by all 

 means let these and other such names be evermore retained. 

 But if Dr. Funk be not a person in any special manner need- 

 ing either stellification or florification ; if neither herb nor 

 flower can avail, more than the touch of monarchs, against 

 hereditary pain ; if it be no better account of a pink to say it 

 is nut-leaved, than of a nut to say it is pink-leaved ; and if the 

 modern mind, incurious respecting the journeys of wise men, 

 has already confused, in its Bradshaw's Bible, the station of 

 Bethlehem with that of Bethel,* it is certainly time to take 

 some order with the partly false, partly useless, and partly for- 

 gotten literature of the Fields ; and, before we bow our chil- 

 dren's memories to the burden of it, ensure that there shall 

 be matter worth carriage in the load. 



4. And farther, in attempting such a change, we must be 

 clear in our own minds whether we wish our nomenclature to 

 tell us something about the plant itself, or only to tell us the 

 place it holds in relation to other plants : as, for instance, in 

 the Herb-Robert, would it be well to christen it, shortly, * Rob 

 Roy,' because it is pre-eminently red, and so have done with 

 it ; or rather to dwell on its family connections, and call it 

 ' Macgregoraceous ' ? 



5. Before we can wisely decide this point, we must resolve 

 whether our botany is intended mainly to be useful to the 

 vulgar, or satisfactory to the scientific elite. For if we give 

 names characterizing individuals, the circle of plants which 

 any country possesses may be easily made known to the chil- 

 dren who live in it : but if we give names founded on the 

 connexion between these and others at the Antipodes, the 

 parish school-master will certainly have double work ; and it 

 may be doubted greatly whether the parish school-boy, at the 

 end of the lecture, will have half as many ideas. 



6. Nevertheless, when the features of any great order of 

 plants are constant, and, on the whole, represented with great 

 clearness both in cold and warm climates, it may be desirable 

 to express this their citizenship of the world in definite nomen- 

 clature. But my own method, so far as hitherto developed, 



* See Sowerby's nomenclature of the flower, vol. ix., plate 1703. 



