188 REVIEWS. 
taken by the Wernerian Society, but we do not know if it was 
completed. We hope the present series will continue, for we 
should very much like to see a modern and complete transla- 
tion of this celebrated store of natural marvels. The portion 
before us comprehends six books of the natural history of trees 
-and herbs, and very pleasant reading is found in them. The 
translator has enriched his pages with copious notes, explanatory 
of the text, and done his best, and not unsuccessfully, to identify 
the plants of his author with those described by modern syste- 
matists. To this we shall have occasion to refer in our subse- 
quent notes on the nomenclature of the British plants. Book 
XII. contains the natural history of trees, and of many other 
plants and vegetable productions besides; exotic trees form the 
subject of Book XIII.; fruit-trees occupy Books XIV. and XV.; 
the XVIth is devoted to the forest-trees, and the XVIIth com- 
prehends the history of the cultivated trees. Pliny’s classifica- 
tion is not systematic, but his descriptions are often curious, and 
for the period when they were composed, are wondrously accurate. 
Among the forest-trees he assigns the first place to the Oak, as 
the Vine obtains the first rank among fruit-bearing trees. To 
the Oak succeed the Pine, the Larch, the Yew, the Ash, the Lin- 
den or Lime, the Maple, the Box, the Juniper, Rhododendron, 
and so on. From this it may be inferred that Pliny classified 
trees by their size, otherwise it is probable that he would have 
combined in one group the Pine, the Juniper, and the Cypress, 
and in another the Poplar and the Willow. -Linnzean and natural 
systems of classification did not then exist ; yet Pliny’s ‘ Natural 
History’ continued to be a readable book, from the time of its 
composition (the end of the first century ?), until the present 
day, when it bids fair to enter again upon a new existence, and to 
be read not only by Linnean and other botanists, but by many 
who find the modern works on botany far too meagre and unin- 
teresting for their perusal. 
It would be impertinent in us to commend a book which has 
received the approbation of sixty generations, which was the 
grand treasury out of which our elder botanists derived most of 
their knowledge of plants, and laboured, often fruitlessly, to 
identify the productions of their several respective countries with 
the objects described by Pliny. The translation, which is solely 
the work of Mr. Riley, is, we believe, faithful; we know that it 
