286 Examination of the Matured Framework [Book ii. 



time even for the mechanical part of his work, for in 1836 he 

 published his treatise on the latest advances in vegetable 

 anatomy and physiology, a quarto volume of 319 pages with 

 twenty-two plates, which gained the prize from the Teyler 

 society in Haarlem; the figures are well drawn, the style is 

 that of a practised writer, but the matter of the work is some- 

 what superficially handled. A year later (1837) appeared the 

 first volume of his - Neues System der Pflanzenphysiologie,' 

 and two more volumes by the year 1839, — a work also rich in 

 new observations and figures. In the course of the same 

 years (1836-39) he wrote detailed annual reports of the results 

 of investigations in the field of physiological botany, which fill 

 a portly volume, and published in 1837 a prize-essay on the 

 organs of secretion, and in 1836 a sketch of the geography of 

 plants; in 1840 appeared a treatise on fructification and 

 polyembryony, and a posthumous work on vegetable patho- 

 logy in 1 841. The number of works thus given to the world 

 between the years 1836 and 1840, though partly prepared 

 before that period, is so unprecedented, that it is impossible 

 for the composer to have maturely meditated his facts or their 

 inner connection, and the study of his writings shows that he 

 was often too hasty in propounding new views, and in reject- 

 ing or accepting the statements of others. The style is per- 

 spicuous and flowing, and animated by a genuine scientific 

 spirit ; but the expressions are often inexact, the ideas not 

 unfrequently immature, and points of fundamental importance 

 are sometimes neglected for unimportant and secondary 

 matters. These faults are the result of hasty production ; we 

 must set against them conspicuous merits ; Meyen had an eye 

 open to every question in phytotomy and left nothing un- 

 noticed, while he made it his constant aim to give clear 

 general views of his subject as a connected whole, and enable 

 his reader to see his way in every direction, in order to make 

 phytotomy and vegetable physiology accessible to wider circles 

 of scientific men ; the like praise is due to his drawings from 



