136 REVIEWS. [June, 



simply stating the author's object : if a good one, it will justify the 

 intention of his work ; and, secondly, by ascertaining how far the 

 author has been successful in the accomplishment of his self-im- 

 posed task. It will be admitted that a really portable pocket field- 

 book, arranged on what is on all hands called the natural system, 

 was a desideratum.. This want has been supplied. The work before 

 us will be quite as easy to consult for the name of a plant as the 

 London Catalogue ; indeed it is not much heavier. The whole 

 is comprised in 160 pages 12mo, with sixteen pages of Title, 

 Preface, and Glossary ; and the whole is in a neat flexible cloth 

 binding. As there is no existing descriptive work on British 

 plants so portable as the book under consideration, it may fairly 

 be admitted that our author has accomplished that part of his 

 task which involves portability. It is a more serious matter to 

 lay before our readers the materials for forming a pretty accurate 

 opinion of the merits of the work in the two essentials of ar- 

 rangement and distinctive marks of Orders, genera, and species ; 

 yet we will do our best to enable them to form an opinion on 

 this head also. 



In our professional career we have often had occasion to 

 complain that the authors of new Greek and Latin grammars — 

 and many excellent ones have appeared in the last half-century 

 — were not unceremoniously sent to Coventry, and their works 

 rigidly suppressed. It is easy for a beginner to learn from any 

 grammar, but it is a harassing office to have to teach according 

 to half-a-dozen or ten systems, diverse in their arrangement and 

 in their details. It is now somewhat above forty years since we 

 were instructed in the simple art of counting stamens ■and pis- 

 tils, and in the mysteries of Didynamia and Tetradynamia (the 

 superiority of dimensions residing in two and in four) . To our 

 young, simple, and unsophisticated perceptions, these distinctions 

 were in some examples very obscure and anything but distinct : 

 but though our apprehension was weak, our faith was strong, 

 and the name of Linnseus was as a tower of strength. To ques- 

 tion the dicta Linnaana would have been deemed equally hete- 

 rodox as to doubt the orthodoxy of the Confession of Faith. 

 About twenty-five years ago we happened, incidentally, while 

 speaking about our botanical doings to a friend who had never 

 heard of the innovations of the last half-century, to mention that 

 Linnseus and his system had been cashiered by the march of in- 



