We dare not presume to arrange the indefatigable and very original botanist Lamarck among the Lin eman botanists of his country, but we beg leave. to mention him here, as one who has thought for him self, and whose works are the better for that reason. His severe and often petulant criticisms of the Swedish teacher, made hint appear more hostile than he really was, to the principles of that great man. Being engagedin the botanical department of the E>teolopfdic Malsodipue, be was obliged to con. form to an arrangement ; but he surely might have the scientific generic names for that purpose; instead of barbarous or vernacular The sexual system of Limeys lays no claim to thel merit of being a natural arrangement. Its sole aim' is to assist us in determining any described plant by analytical examination. The principles on which it is founded are the number, situation, proportion, or connection, of the stamens and pistils, or organs of impregnation. These principles are taken absolutely, with the sole exception of their not being permitted to divide the genera, that is, to place some species of a genus in one part of the system, and others in another, though such may differ in the number, situa tion, proportion, or connection of their stamens or pistils; those characters being possibly artificial, while the genera are supposed, or intended, accord ing to a fundamental law independent of all systems, to be natural assemblages of species. We need not here explain the mode in which Linnieus has pro. vided against any inconvenience in practice, result ing from such anomalies of nature herself.
' But though this popular system of -Linnaeus does not profess to he a natural method of classification, it is, in many incidentally so, several of its classes or orders whose characters are founded in situation, proportion, or connection, being more or less perfectly natural assemblages ; nor can it be denied that, on the whole, it usually brings together as many grows of natural genera, as occur in most systems that have been promulgated. This fact
would be more evident, if the various editors of this system, those who have added new genera to the original ones of Linnaeus, or, in general, those who have any way applied his method to practice, had properly understood it. They would then have per. ceived that its author had always natural affinities in view; his aim, however incompletely fulfilled, se. cording to our advanced knowledge, having con steady been, to place genera together in natural af finity orpp on, as far as their relationship' could be At the same time he uses an - analytical method, at the bead of each class in his Sydow Vegetakiiiim, in which the genera are ills ones, which, to foreigners, would have made all the dif ference, between a commodious and an unintelligible disposition of his work. In the detail of his perfor mance, he has great merit, both with respect to clearing up obscure species, or describing new ones, and be had the advantage of access, on many occa sions, to Commerson's collection. Lamarck's Fiore Franfoise, is arranged after a new analytical method of his own. This book however is valuable, inde pendent of its system, as an assemblage of practical knowledge and observation. We have only to re gret a wanton and inconvenient change of names, which too often occurs, and which is not always for the better ; witness Cheiranthus horlensis, instead of the long established incases of Linnaeus ; Mekne pyre= violaceum, which is not correct, for Nemo rowing, which is strictly so, and which preserves an analogy with the rest of the species.
We shall now undertake the consideration of the principles that have been suggested, and the at tempts that have been male, respecting a