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 Linnaeus, 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- 
naean 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 Linngean 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, 
