LINNiEAN SYSTEM. 



xxix 



The warbling woodland, — the resounding shore, 

 The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields — 

 All that the genial ray of morning gilds, 

 And all that echoes to the song of even." 



Beattie. 



The venerable Dr. Latham, now (1831) in his ninety-first 

 year, has made some slight improvements on the Linnsean sys- 

 tem, and corrected a few of the more glaring blunders ; but, — 

 while it is impossible not to admire his enthusiasm, being now, 

 as I am informed, as lively as he was more than half a century 

 ago, and as delighted in seeing a specimen of a new bird as a boy 

 on finding his first bird's nest, — it is much to be regretted that he 

 belongs so decidedly to the school of Linnseus, and that he has 

 not fallen upon a more convenient method of communicating his 

 extensive knowledge. His General History of Birds, in ten 

 volumes quarto, price twenty-one guineas, is essentially Lin- 

 nsean in character, and though it forms a tolerable book of 

 reference, which might be advantageously condensed into a half- 

 guinea volume, it cannot, with any propriety, be called a history. 

 It would have been much better also, without the coloured 

 plates, which so much enhance the price of the work, though we 

 may well excuse the execution of these, when we recollect that 

 they were all etched and coloured by the worthy Doctor himself. 



It is much to be lamented, that the meagre index fashion of de- 

 scribing natural productions was ever introduced, since it has so sel- 

 dom been employed in the only way in which it can be useful; and 

 it appears to have taken such deep root, as to threaten, like some 

 sorts of noxious weeds, to be incapable of being eradicated ; for by 

 far the greater number of recent works upon the subject, even 

 when they pretend to novelty of system, have the essential charac- 

 teristic of the Linnsean school, of being most carefully stripped of 

 every interesting detail, and trimmed down to a limited number of 

 lines, reminding us strongly of the old poets, who squared their 

 verses into the forms of adzes, hearts, and triangles, and left the 

 consideration of sentiment and imagery to bards who would not 

 condescend to such puerile trifling. We find little, indeed, in Lin- 

 nsean works besides dry catalogues, arranged in endless divisions 

 and sub-divisions, each ticketted with some sesquipedalian or bar- 

 barous name ; the whole exhibiting a great wilderness of words, 



