﻿346 THE DESIGN OF A TREATISE 



prize many more ; and the Dravyabidana, or Dic- 

 tionary of Natural Productions, includes, I believe, a 

 far greater number ; the properties of which are dis- 

 tinctly related in medical tracts of approved authority. 

 Now the first step, in compiling a treatise on the plants 

 of India, should be to write their true names in Ro- 

 man letters, according to the most accurate orthogra- 

 phy, and in Sanscrit preferably to any vulgar dialect ; 

 because a learned language is fixed in books, while 

 popular idioms are in constant fluctuation, and will not 

 perhaps, be understood a century hence by the inha- 

 bitants of these Indian territories, whom future bota- 

 nists may consult on the common appellations of trees 

 and flowers. The child! sh denominations of plants from 

 the persons who first described them, ought wholly 

 to be rejected ; for Champaca and H'mna seem to me 

 not only more elegant, but far properer, designations 

 of an Indian and an Arabian plant, than Michelia and 

 JLawsoma ; nor can I see without pain, that the great 

 Swedish botanist considered it as the supreme and only 

 reward of labour in this part of natural history, to pre- 

 serve a name by hanging it on a blossom, and that he 

 de lared this mode of promoting and adorning botany, 

 worthy of being continued with holy reverence, though 

 so high an honour, he says, ought to be conferred with 

 chaste reserve, and not prostituted for the purpose of 

 conciliating the good-will, or eternizing the memory, 

 of am but his chosen followers ; no, not even of saints. 

 His list of an hundred and fifty such names, clearly 

 shows that his excellent works are the true basis of his 

 just celebrity, which would have been feebly supported 

 by the stalk of the Littpcea. From what proper name 

 the Plantain is called Musa, I do not know ; but it 

 seems to be the Dutch pronunciation of the Ara- 

 bic word for that vegetable, and ought not, therefore, 

 to have appeared in his list ; though, in my opinion, it 

 is the only rational name in the muster-roll. As to the 

 system of Lmn<£iis, it is the system of Nature, subor- 

 dinate indeed to the beautiful arrangement of natural 



