436 
MEMOIR OF DR. LINDLEY. 
\ 
prepared the specific characters, derivations, and accentuations; he either wrote 
or examined the notes, and corrected the whole while passing through the press.” 
This was certainly one of the greatest botanical publications that had been 
attempted since the time of Ray, and in point of comprehensiveness is only 
second to the great work now executing by De Candolle. One great merit of 
the work consisted in its being the first attempt that had been made to present 
the English reader with the arrangement of the natural system of plants adapted 
for practical purposes. This system had for many years been cultivated and 
improved on the Continent; but, except occasional notices, little attention had 
been paid to it by botanists in our own country. The systematic works produced 
in Great Britain, with few exceptions, had been arranged on the artificial system 
of Linn^us, and with the prevalence of this system there was a remarkable 
want of interest in the important advances the science of Botany was making 
under the auspices of Jussieu, De Candolle, Richard, Agardh, and others, on 
the Continent; and our distinguished countryman Robert Brown. 
The mind of Dr. Lindley was early struck with the necessity and utility of 
studying Botany upon the plan of a natural arrangement of plants; and shortly 
after the publication of the Cyclopaedia , he produced his Introduction to the Natural 
System of Botany (1830). This work was an arrangement of [the vegetable 
kingdom upon the system of Jussieu, as revised and improved by De Candolle. 
It was accompanied by an able essay upon the advantages and objects of the 
natural system, and the relative value of characters in the formation of natural 
orders. This work was an important addition to botanical literature in England, 
and one that was not only adapted to display the advantages of the natural 
system, but opened to the student a vast fund of information on the structure 
and uses of plants, hitherto closed from his view. 
This work was followed in 1832 by another scarcely if at all inferior in point 
f importance,—the Introduction to Systematic and Physiological Botany , in 
which, as well as the former work, an intimate acquaintance with the labours 
of Continental botanists was displayed; and the British botanist was thus 
supplied with a correct exposition of the real state of botanical science. 
When in 1829 Dr. Lindley was appointed Professor of Botany in the London 
University, no compendious arrangement of British plants upon the natural 
system existed. In order to supply this want he published a Synopsis of the 
British Flora , arranged according to the Jussieuan system, and thus completed 
the facilities his former works had afforded for the study of the vegetable king¬ 
dom according to its natural affinities. Each of the three last works has since 
passed through a second edition. 
The mind that had accomplished these labours was not likely to remain 
passive whilst so many attempts were making to render the arrangement of 
