HISTORY OF BOTANY. 61 



discovered more real similarities, more natural classes dian all die bo- 

 tanists who preceded, and many who followed him. His work on 

 plants (De Plant is, Lib. XVI . Florent. 1583.; still remains a valuable 

 monument of ancient botany. " C^salpinus was a great man," says 

 LiNN/Eus with enthusiastic affeftion, « What signal service did he 

 « not render by first opening the career! — His short descriptions, 

 " by which he distinguishes himself from all others, please me parti- 

 " cularly. He has always some oddity of his own*." 



.With the close of the sixteenth century a man appeared, who- 

 had long ago been expected by botany in its confused state, who 

 did not shrink from, the herculean labour of coUefting into one regular 

 mass its numerous and scattered treasures, of exhibiting them at one 

 view, and giving a knowledge of the botanical world and all its dis- 

 coveries. This was Caspar Bauhin, the second great botanist pro- 

 duced by Switzerland. He was born in the year 1560, at Basil, made 

 a tour through Italy and Germany, and was appointed professor of 

 botany and anatomy in his native place, where he died in 1624- 



His elder brother, John Bauhin, first physician the Duke of Wur- 

 teynherg, acquired also a great literary reputation in botany. The prin- 

 cipal works, by which he gained a lasting name in the annals of that 

 science, were his representations of plants, and especially what he 

 called the exhibition of the botanical theatre t, a work which took up. 

 almost all his life-time, and was the fruit of fourteen years colletlions 

 and labours. It served to facilitate the study of botany and to promote. 



* Csesalpinus mihi magnua ; quantum erat, primani condere gentem !---llle mihi maxime 

 placet, ejusque breves descriptiones, quibus discedit ab omnibus aliis, tamen semper liubet 

 aliquid singulare. Epistolae ab eruditis viris ad Hallerum scriptae, Vol. 1. Berrite, i-]-]2- 



t Phytopinax, Bas. 1596, cfuarto.—- Pinax Theatri Botsnici, il>/c/. 1623. 



it's 



