1 
L 41 ] 
•which he ufed the Latin language caufed him to fpeak 
and write pcrfedly aphoriliically. 
Among his various writings it is probable that tlje 
heft is his Philofophia Botanica, a work containing more 
original matter and genuine fcience than any book 
which at prcfent occurs to my memory. Something of 
the playfulnefs of his temper may be obferved in his 
Gritica Botanica, when in his diredfions concerning the 
appropriation of celebrated names to the genera of plants, 
he obferves, that a proper connexion fhould be preferved 
between the habits and appearance of the plant and the 
name from which it has its derivation : and after fomc 
examples he concludes with his own. “ Linnaeam 
dixit cel. Gronovius plantam lapponicam, depreffam, 
“ vilem, negledlam, berevi tempore florentem, a confi- 
“ mili fuo Linnxo.” 
His fyftem, now received in every country illumi- 
nated by the rays of fcience, may be confidered as thq 
bible of nature, the great nomenclature of natural 
fcience ; where every genuine charadler is a family 
portraiture, and every fpecific defeription a miniature.; 
and where, by a few fimple appropriate terms, the 
image of every diftina objed on the globe we inhabit is 
refleded on the mind and the memory. 
For the grolTnefs and vulgarity of language ufed in 
depiding the Ihells, I know not what excufe can be 
VOL. VIT. — D 3 
