REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES 



201 



portion as men feel themselves inclined to prefer ease to difficulty and 

 freedom to constraint*. 



We will here exhibit an instance of the utility of those trivial names 

 in a species of grass, which used to be called Gramen Xerampelinum^ 

 Miliacea, prcetenuis ramosaque sparsa panicula, sive Xerampelino congener, 

 arvensCf cestivum ; gramen minutissimo scmine. Linnaeus expressed 

 clearly and distindly the name of this grass by the two words — Poa 

 iulbosa, and rendered its description more intelligible than could be 

 done by the whole foregoing string of descriptive names. 



" Nothing could be more disgusting and more ridiculous," says the 

 philosopher of Geneva, " if a woman, or any of those men who are so 

 <« much like them, asked the name of some herb or garden flower, than 

 " to throw up, by way of answer, a long train of latin w^ords, which 

 " sounded like a conjuration of hobgoblins t." 



By this amelioration of language, by the easy and pleasant method 

 introduced by Linnaeus, the study of botany was uncommonly pro- 

 moted and facilitated +. It got rid of the deterring appearances of an 



* See J. A. Murray Progr. duo : Vindicix Nominum Trivialium, Stirpibus a Linn^o 

 impertitorum. Goett'ing, 1782, oftavo. 



f Rien n'etoit plus maussade et plus ridicule, lorsqu' une femme, ou quelqu' un de ces 

 hommes, qui leur ressemblcnt, defnandoient le nom d'une herbe, ou d'une fleur de jardin, que 

 !a necessite de cracher en reponse, une longe tirade de mots Latins, qui ressembloient a des 

 evocations magiques. — J. J. Rousseau's Preface de /' Edition de Botanlque. 



X CoNDORCET, in his Panegyric on Linn^us, expresses himself thus : " Linn^us has 

 , been reproached with having rendered too easy the nomenclature of botany, and occasioned 

 " thereby the appearance of a vast number[of small works. This objection seems only to prove 

 what progress botany has made under him. Nothing, perhaps, evinces better how far a 

 " science is advanced, than the facility of writing books of mediocrity on such a science, and the 

 " difficulty of composing works which contain novelty of matter." See Eloge de M, De 

 " LiNNE, in the Hisioire de V Academic Royale des Sciences. Paris 1781, 74 pages in quarto. 



D d arduous 



