292 Dr. Lindley^s Natural System of Botany. 



Art. VIII. — A Natural System of Botany ; or a systematic view 

 of the Organization, Natural Affinities, and Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of the whole Vegetable Kingdom; together with the uses 

 of the most important species in Medicine, the Arts, and rural or 

 domestic economy; by John Lindley, Ph. D. &c. Second edi- 

 tion, with numerous additions and corrections, and a complete list 

 of genera, ivith their synonyms. ■ London: Longman, Rees, &;c. 

 1836. pp. 526. 8vo. 



(Communicated for this Journal.) 



The cultivators of Botany in this country are generally acquainted 

 with the former edition of this work through the American reprint, 

 edited by Dr. Torrey, and published by the Messrs. Carvill of New 

 York, in the spring of 1831. Dr. Lindley's treatise was at the time 

 of its appearance, the only introduction to the Natural System in 

 the English language, if we except a translation of Achille Rich- 

 ard's Nouveaux Elemens de la Botanique, which was published 

 about the same period. It is unnecessary to state that a treatise 

 of this kind was greatly needed, or to allude either to the pecu- 

 liar qualifications of the learned and industrious author for the ac- 

 complishment of the task, or the high estimation in which the work 

 is held in Europe. But we may very properly offer our testimony 

 respecting the great and highly favorable influence which it has 

 exerted upon the progress of botanical science in the United States. 

 Great as the merits of the work undoubtedly are, we must neverthe- 

 less be excused from adopting the terms of extravagant and some- 

 what equivocal eulogy employed by a popular author, who gravely 

 informs his readers that no book, since printed bibles were first sold 

 in Paris by Dr. Faustus, ever excited so much surprise and wonder 

 as did Dr. Torrey's edition of Lindley's Introduction to the Natural 

 System of Botany. Now we can hardly believe that either the 

 author or American editor, of the work referred to, were ever in 

 danger, as was honest Dr. Faustus, of being burned for witchcraft ; 

 neither do we find any thing in its pages calculated to produce such 

 astonishing effects, except, perhaps, upon the minds of those botan- 

 ists, if such they may be called, who had never dreamed of any im- 

 portant changes in the science since the appearance of the good Dr. 

 Turton's translation of the Species Plantarum, and who speak of 



