224 
HISTORY OP BOTANY. 
by turns the asylum and tomb of letters, had witnessed under the 
first of the Cesars the destruction of the library collected by the 
Ptolemies ; under Aurelian, that founded by Augustus 5 under The- 
odosius, that which Antony had given to Cleopatra ; and for the 
fourth time in possession of an immense collection of books, ac- 
quired through her love for philosophy, this city saw her magnifi- 
cent library reduced to ashes by the victorious Saracens. 
This barbarous but noble race at length became imbued with the 
love of science; a succession of calits, (among whom was Ha- 
roun Alraschid, already spoken of as the friend of Charlemagne,) by 
their devotion to learning, rendered Bagdad the most enlightened 
city of the earth. Their learned men began to construct maps of 
conquered countries, and to describe objects of natural history; 
distant voyages extended and multiplied their commercial relations ; 
and mathematics, medicine, and natural history, were cultivated 
with ardour. 
When the Arabs had conquered Spain, they carried thither letters 
and arts, and their schools became celebrated throughout the world. 
In the 11th century the French, Italians, Germans, and English, 
w^nt to them to learn the elements of science. The Arabians pre- 
served their superiority in the sciences at least, if not in hterature, 
until towards the close of the 15th century. But when this people, 
divested gradually of their European conquests, were at last driven 
from Spain into Africa, they seemed, as if by instinct, to replunge 
into the savage ignorance from whence they had been drawn by the 
eftbrts of a few great minds. 
The Arabs had considered plants more as physicians and agricul- 
turists, than as botanists ; but although their descriptions of plants 
were imperfect, their labours were not useless to botanical science. 
They discovered many plants of Persia, India, and Chinaj which 
were unknown to the ancients. They, however, fell into the error 
of dweUing more upon the works of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dios- 
corides, and Phny, than of observing nature; almost beheving that 
nature herself must be wrong, when she deviated from those celcr 
brated philosophers. 
The Crusades, commencing at the close of the ilth century, and 
continuing until towards the middle of the 13th, prove the barbarity 
of the times ; yet we cannot doubt that these distant and romantic 
expeditions were, in part, suggested by the desire of change and the 
vague wish to see and to know nev/ things, and hastened the awak- 
ening of the human mind from the sleep of ages. 
The 12th and ISth centuries v/itnessed in Italy the revival of a 
taste for letters and the fine ar.ts. The commerce of that country 
was flourishing, the people made long voyages by sea, and in the 
accounts which they published, spoke of the vegetable productions 
of the countries they had visited, in such a manner as excited the 
curiosity of the nations of Europe. 
About this period, it is supposed, herbariums, or collections of 
dried plants, began to be preserved. This was an important era in 
botanical science ; for nature is ever true and incapable of leading 
into error, while descriptions, or even drawings, may often give false 
views of natural objects. 
The science of Botany was not enriched by a single work of any 
merit, from the fall of the Roman empire, a period which marked 
Destruction of the Alexandrian Library— Bagdad famous for learning— Schools of 
Arabs in Spain— Remarks upon the Arabian botanists— The Crusades— Revival of lit- 
erature— Herbariums made. 
