OF MANDIBULATA. 457 



his just meed of fame*. Botany is the true province of 

 Linnasus; there he claims the prize of pre-eminence, and 

 there he must stand or fall according to the judgement of 

 those philosophers who in the cultivation of that charming 

 science are able to carry their ambition beyond ascertaining 

 the name of a plant. But the most original of the bota- 

 nical works of Linnasus, belongs in certain respects as 

 much to the zoologist as to the botanist ; and there are 

 some even who think that, with an exception in favour of 

 his powerful instrument of Nomenclature, he never con- 

 ferred such a benefit on Zoology as by the publication of 

 his Philosophia Botamca. Here we find that what by his 



* It cannot be supposed, however, that my partiality for a science, injured 

 as this has been by a belief in the infallibility of Linnaeus, should have 

 excited any great anxiety to conceal his faults. In every attempt to serve 

 the cause of Natural History, my rule has been " fart qsta senHam." Had 

 there been in this country any regular and efficient school of Zoology, such 

 remarks would not have been left for me to make; but unfortunately in 

 those classic scenes which derive no small portion of their fame from a Ray, 

 and a Lister, the existence of Zoology as a science is in these days scarcely 

 suspected. Well may the foreigner who beholds our learned establish- 

 ments so splendidly endowed, note, among the most remarkable circum- 

 stances attending them, that in none whatever should there be a zoological 

 chair. It is not for me to enter into the causes of this, else it were desire- 

 able to know why plants should have been deemed worthy ot attention, 

 while animals have been utterly neglected. I can nnly acknowledge with 

 regret, that such has been the case. If it be said that lectures on natural 

 affinities are included in some course of comparative anatomy, I am truly 

 glad to hear it ; but if it be urjred that the knowledge of comparative ana- 

 tomy implies that of the animal kingdom, I deny it totally, since compara- 

 tive anatomy is only the instrument of Zoology; and while no man can be 

 versed in natural arlinities without some acquaintance with comparative 

 anatomy, examples may easily be specified of comparative anatomists who 

 know nothing of Natural History. It is true, that there are professors of 

 Natural History in three of our Northern Universities ; and indeed the zeal, 

 the liberality, and justly celebrated acquirements of one of these gentlemen 

 are likely to produce the most beneficial effects to science at large, as well 

 as to the learned body which he adorns. But we must not conceal the 

 fact, that a professorship of Natural History is necessarily charged with 

 duties that give ample employment in Paris to thirteen professors with 

 their numerous assistants. I have ventured to give this humiliating pic- 

 ture of the state of zoological instruction in Great Britain, because there 

 are persons who affect surprise, that in that science which relates to the 

 animated works of God, France should take precedence over a nation in- 

 comparably more religious. 



