124 OPPONENTS OF LINN^US. 



Heister had at last, the satisfa6lion of making a discovery fromi 

 which he promised himself the greatest triumph and hoped to dwindle 

 into nothing, both the fame of Linn a us and his system of reform. 

 A letter had fallen into his hands, which John Henry Burkbard, 

 first physician to the Dukeof Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, had writ- 

 ten to Leibnitz, and caused to be printed in 1702. In this letter, 

 BuRKHARD, with great ingenuity, had already given some ideas of 

 the sexes of plants and of the system the fonnation of which was af- 

 terwards fully accomplished by Linn^us. But at the same time 

 BuRKHARD was ncvcr of opinion, that a new system of botany, might 

 be introduced from the parts of fru6lification o^f plants *. He set forth 

 the proposition of deriving the division of their classes from the 

 flower, and their orders from the fruit. Heister was not remiss 

 in divulging his discovery. He caused a new edition of Bu Ric- 

 hard's letter to be printed in 1750, with a circumstantial introduction, 

 in which he dire61ed all the shafts of his resentment against Linn^us, 

 and represented the novelty of his modern sexual system, with the 

 most sarcastic irony t. Thus all notable inventions and reforms have 



* The following are Burkhard's own words on this subjeiSt :—Q_uoniam autem partes 

 genitales minus sunt conspedlas, nec speftantium occulos facile alHciuiit ; consuhius esse duco, 

 ii earum conformatio in comparatione stirpium pnetermittatur et vesicularum tantum semi- 

 nalium situs et numerus attendatur, et quidem non ubivis, sed in plantis tantummodo, qux 

 flores iimperfeftos ferunt, ubi constituendis classibus asque inservire poteruut, ac m floribus 

 perfeftis petalorum situs ac numerus. 



f The following is the title of Burkhard's letter, which is become a literary scarcity : 

 J. Henrici Burkhard EpistolaadLfiiBNiTziUM, quacharafterem plantarum naturalem nec 

 a radicibus nec ab aliis plantarum pai tibus minus essentialibus, peti posse ostendit, simulque 

 in comparationem plantarum, quam partes earum genitales suppeditant, inquirit. Guelpherb^ 

 1702. 32 pages in quarto. 



met 



