6t 
HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
discovered more real similarities, more natural classes than all the bo 
tanists who preceded, and many who followed him. His woik on 
plants (De Plantis , Lib. XVI. Florent. 1583J still remains a valuable 
monument of ancient botany. “ CjEsalfinus was a great man, says 
Lin naus with enthusiastic affe&ion, “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- 
te 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 collecting 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 pio- 
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- 
temberg, acquired also a great literary reputation in botany. 1 he piin- 
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 colleftions 
and labours. It served to facilitate the study of botany and to promote 
* Cssalpinus milii magnus ; quantum erat, primam condere gentem !— Tile mihi maxime 
1-icet ej usque breves descriptions, quibus discedit ab omnibus aliis, tamen semper habet 
illiquid siiwulare. Epistolas ab eruditis viris ad Hallerum scripts, Vol. I. liana, 1773. 
f Phytopinax, Bas. 159 6 . quarto.— Pinax Theatri Botanici, ibid. 1623, 
it’s 
