194 Bibliography. 



by contemporary or succeeding botanists ; one of whom, we are sorry 

 to say, has not always paid the deference which courtesy and common 

 justice require to the names under which the discoverer distributed them. 

 Under these circumstances, and remembering that this lamented bot- 

 anist seems to have deprecated the indiscriminate publication of his un- 

 finished papers, we are convinced that the judicious editor could not do 

 otherwise than disregard, as he has done, these once invaluable materi- 

 als, and leave the reader to gather a general idea of Dr. Baldwin's inde- 

 fatigable labors and rare promise, from the perusal of his familiar letters. 

 About half the volume is accordingly occupied with the correspondence 

 between Baldwin and Muhlenberg, which, commencing in the year 

 1811, and actively carried on until the death of that estimable botanist, 

 in 1815, abounds with interesting matter, and contains many casual no- 

 tices of contemporary botanists, which we would not willingly lose. 

 A few letters to the late Mr. Lambert, Vice President of the Linnsean 

 Society, are followed by a more extended series addressed to Dr. Dar- 

 lington himself. These form, in our estimation, the most characteristic 

 part of the volume ; as they have the vivacity, simplicity, and fresh- 

 ness, and consequently the lively interest, which belong only to letters 

 addressed to a familiar friend, without the remotest idea of their being 

 seen by a third person. The series, too, embraces the later and most 

 interesting portion of the writer's life ; the last year of his residence in 

 Florida, (1817) ; his cruise in the U. S. frigate Congress, with the gov- 

 ernment commissioners sent to Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, &c, for the 

 purpose of ascertaining the condition and prospects of the South Amer- 

 ican colonies, then struggling to establish their independence ; his return 

 to Wilmington, Delaware, where his time was chiefly occupied in pre- 

 paring for publication, at Dr. Darlington's request, a set of spirited 

 articles, entitled " Notices of East Florida and the sea coast of the 

 State of Georgia, in a series of letters to a friend in Pennsylvania" 

 filled with valuable observations upon the condition, resources, pro- 

 ductions, and botany of that country, but which unfortunately were left 

 half finished when he was called to join the expedition under Major 

 Long: still the fragment which the editor has introduced at the close 

 of the volume, will be read with great interest. From the latter part 

 of the correspondence with Dr. Darlington, we gather many data re- 

 specting the origin and early progress of Long's expedition, which ap- 

 pears to have been attended with the usual amount of bad management, 

 vexation, and disappointment. One item of the instructions from gov- 

 ernment might perhaps have been advantageously copied on a more 

 recent occasion, viz. that in which the commander and journalist are 

 instructed " not to interfere with the records to he kept ly the naturalists 

 attached to the expedition.'''' But Dr. Baldwin's health was totally unequal 



