The German school of botany has, for a long pe riod, been almost completely Linntean. This how ever was not always the case, for, in the earlier part of his career, the learned Swede was attacked more repeatedly and severely from this quarter of the world than any other ; his ridiculous critic beck of Petersburgh excepted, who would not admit the doctrine of the sexes of plants, because the pol len of one flower may fly upon another, and his pu rity could not bear the idea of such adultery in Na ture. Numerous methods of arrangement a in Germany, from the pens of Heister, appeared , Haller, and others, and even Schreber adopted a system like some of these in his Flora above men tioned. It would be to no purpose now to criticise these attempts. They cannot rank as natural sys tems, nor have they the convenience of artificial ones. Part of their principles are derived from Lin nteus, others from Rivinus. Their authors were not extensively conversant with plants, nor trained in any sound principles of generic discrimination or combination. They set off with alacrity, but were soon entangled in their own difficulties, and were left by Linnteus to answer themselves or each other. We here mention these learned for learned they were thought by themselves and their pupils, merely because they will scarcely require animadversion, when we come to canvass the great question of •natural and artificial classification, they having had no distinct ideas of a difference between the two. Hedwig used frequently to lament, that his preceptor Ludwig had never perfected his sys tem of arrangement ; but from what he has given to the world, we see no great room to suppose he had any 'thing very excellent in reserve. Unexecuted projects are magnified in the mists of uncertainty. We have ventured elsewhere, in a biographical ac count of Hedwig, to remark, that even that ingeni ous man " did not imbibe under Ludwig, anything of the true philosophical principles of arrangement, the talents for which are granted to very few, and are scarcely ever of German growth. We mean no invidious reflections on any nation or people. Each has its appropriate merits, and all are useful toge ther in science, like different characters on the theatre of human life." Germany may well dispense with any laurels ob tained by the very secondary merit of speculative schemes of classification, when she can claim the honour of having produced such a practical observer as Gartner. This indefatigable botanist devoted himself to the investigation of the fruits and seeds of plants. Being eminently skilled in the use of the pencil, he has, like Hedwig, faithfully recorded, what he no less acutely detected. The path he struck out for himself, of delineating and describing in -detail, with magnified dissections, every part of the seed and seed-vessel of each genus within his reach, bad never been explored before in so regular and methodical a manner. Botanists of the Linnsetm school -are justly censurable for having paid too lit tle attention to the structure of these important parts, in their generic characters. Indeed it may be said, that if they were able to establish good genera with out them, and, after the example of their leader, merely preferred the more obvious and distinct or gans, when sufficient for their purpose, their conduct was justifiable. If generic principles be natural and certain, it matters not on what parts of the fructifi. cation they are founded ; nor is the inflorescence, or even the herb or root, rejected by sound philoso phers, but because they are found to lead only to unnatural and uncertain characters. It is therefore extremely to the honour of Linmeus, Gaertner and Jussieu, that their conceptions of genera are almost entirely the same. They meet in almost every point, however different the paths by which they pursue their inquiries. Their labours illustrate and confirm each other. Even Tournefort, who conceived so well, on the whole, the distinctions of genera, which he could but ill define, receives new strength from their knowledge, which does not overturn his imper fect performances, but improve them. The accurate student of natural genera cannot fail to perceive, that where Gaertner differs from Linnteus, which is but in a very few material instances, such as his nu merous subdivision of the genus Funsaria, and his distribution of the compound flowers, it arises from his too intent and exclusive consideration of one part of the fructification, instead of an enlarged and coot prehensive view of the whole. In other words, he neglects the Linntean maxim, that " the genus should give the character, not the character the ge nus." Such at least appears to us the case in Fo ntana. In the syngenesious family, being so very natural in itself, the discrimination of natural genera becomes in consequence so difficult, that Gaertner and Linnaeus may well be excused if they do not entirely agree, and they perhaps may both be satis fied with the honour of having collected materials, and disposed them in different points of view, for the use of some future systematic, who may decide be tween them. However exact Gartner may have been in discriminating the parts of seeds, we believe him mistaken in distinguishing the vitae: as a sepa rate organ, distinct in functions from the cotyledons. His readers will also do well, while they profit by his generally excellent principles, not to admit any of his rules as absolute. They may serve as a clue to the intricacies of Nature, but they must not over rule her laws. Still less is our great carpologist to be implicitly followed in physiological doctrines or reasonings ; witness his feeble and incorrect attack on Hedwig's opinions, or rather demonstrations, re specting the impregnation of Mosses. His criticisms of Linnteus are not always marked with that candour which becomes a disinterested lover of truth and nature, nor can we applaud in general his changes of nomenclature, or of terminology; especially when he unphilosophically calls the germen of Linn:cu., the ovarium, a word long ago rejected, as erroneous when applied to plants. These however are slight blemishes, in a reputation which will last as long as scientific botany is cultivated at all. Botanists can now no longer neglect, but at their own peril, the parts which Gaertner has called into notice, and to the scrutiny of which, directed by his faithful guid once, the physioIegist and the systematic must in future, recur.
We shall close this part of our subject with the mention of the Berlin school, where Gleditach, who, in 3740, repelled the attacks of Siegesbeck on Lin naeus, was Professor, and published a botanical syi-, tern, founded on the situation, or insertion, of the stamens ; the subordinate divisions being taken from.. the number of the same parts ; so that it is, in the latter respect, a sort of inversion of the Linntean method. In the former, or the outline of its plan,
the system of Gleditsch is in some measure an anti • cipation of that of Jussieu. Berlin has of late been much distinguished for the study of natural history, and possesses a society of its own, devoted to that pursuit. Its greatest ornament was the late Profes sor Willdenow, who if he fell under the lash of the more accurate Afzelius, is entitled- to the gratitude of his fellow-labourers, not for theoretical specula tions, but for the useful and arduous undertaking of a Species Plantarum, on the Linmean plan, being in deed an edition of the same work of Linnaeus, en riched with recent discoveries. This book, left un finished at the end of the first order•of the Crypto gamia, by the death of the editor, wants only a ge neral index to render it sufficiently complete. The Musci, Lichens, and Fungi, are systematically treat ed in the separate works of writers devoted to those particular, and now very extensive, subjects, from whom Willdenow could but have been a compiler.' With the Filices, which he lived to publish, he was practically conversant. His insertion of the essential generic characters, throughout these volumes, is an useful addition, and now become necessary in every similar undertaking.
Little can be said of Holland in this review of the botanical state of Europe for a few years past. The Leyden garden has always been kept up, espe cially during the life of the late Professor David Van -Royen, with due care and attention ; we know little of its fate in the !subsequent convulsed state of the country. Botany has long been on the decline at Amsterdam, though we are indebted to that garden for having first received, and afterwards communi cated to other countries, such acquisitions of Thun berg in Japan as escaped the perils of importation.
The botany of Switzerland may, most commo diously,. be considered in the next place. Here, in his native country, the great Haller, after a long re sidence at Gottingen, was finally established. Its rich and charming Flora has been illustrated by his classical pen, with peculiar success. Every body is conversant with the second edition of his work, pub lished in 1768, in 8 vols. folio, and entitled, Historia Stirpium Indigenarum Helvetia, with its inimitable engravings, of the Orchis tribe more particularly. But few persons, who have not laboured with some at tention at the botany of Switzerland, are aware of the superior value, in point of accuracy, of the original edition of the same work, published in 1742; under the title of Enumeratio Methodica Stirpium Helvetia bidigenaruni. This edition is indispensable to those who wish fully to understand the subject, or to ap- ' preciate Haller's transcendent knowledge and abili ties. These works are classed after a system of his own, intended to be more consonant • with nature than the Linntean sexual method. We can scarcely say that it is so, on the whole ; nor is it, on the other hand, constructed according to any uniformity of plan. The number of the stamens, compared with that of the segments of the corolla, or its petals, re gulate the characters of several • classes, and those are artificial. Others are assumed as natural, and are for the most part really so, but their characters are frequently taken from Linnaeus, even from his artificial system, as the Cruciat•, and the Lord Bute has well said, that Haller was a Linntean in. disguise. His classification however was merely intended to answer his own purpose, with respect to the Swiss plants ; for he was not a general botanist, nor had he-a • sufficiently comprehensive view of the subject to form a general system, or even to be aware of the difficulties of such an undertaking. He ought not therefore to be obnoxious to criticism in that view. His method has served for the use of his scholars, as•the Llamas) one serves English bo tanists, by way of. a dictionary. Sense such is ne cessary ; and those who should begin to decide on the merits of a system, before they know plants, would most •ssuredly be in danger of appearing more learned to themselves than to others. We cannot exculpate Haller from some degree of prejudice in rejecting real improvements of Linnaeus, which are independent of classification ; such as his trivial or specific names, by which every species is spoken of at once, in one word, mostly so contrived as to assist the memory, by an indication of the character, ap pearance, history, or use, of the plant. What did the great .Swiss botanist substitute in the place of this contrivance/ A series of numbers, burthensome to the memory, destitute of information, accommo dated to his own book only, and necessarily liable to total change on the introduction of every new discovered species ! At the same time that he re jected the luminous nomenclature of his old friend and fellow-student, who had laboured in the most ingenuous terms to deprecate his jealousy, -he paid a tacit homage to its merit, by contending that the honour of this invention was due to Rivinus. In this he was not less incorrect than uncandid, the !short names of Rivinus being designed as specific characters, for which purpose Haller knew, as well as Linnaeus, they were unfit. Useful specific cha racters he himself constructed on the plan of Lines: us, with some little variation, not always perhaps for the better, as to strictness of principle, but often strikingly expressive. Here, as in every thing con nected with practical botany, he shines. The most rigid Limuean, whose soul is not entirely shrivelled up with dry aphorisms and prejudice, must love Haller for his taste and enthusiasm, and the Flora of Switzerland as much for his sake as its own, No wonder that his pupils multiplied, and formed a band of enthusiasts, tenacious of even the imperfections of their master. The line, of demarcation is now no longer distinctly drawn between them and the equal ly zealous scholars of the northern sage. The anti able and lamented Duvall strove to profit by"the la hours of both. The Alpine botanists of France and Italy have served to amalgamate the Swedish and the Helvetian schools. The 'flora of Dauphiny by Villars is nearly .Linorean in. system, and the prin .oiples of the veteran Bellardi of Turin are entirely so e though he has been, in some of his publications, obliged to conform bathe method of his late precep tor, the vereerable Allicmi, who in spite of all remon strance, had the anibition of. forming a system of bis own. His Flora Pedensontana is disposed ac cording to this system, an unnatural and inconveni ent jumble of the ideas of Rivinus, Tournefort, and others. This work is also faulty in the neglect of specific definitions, so that its plates and occasional descriptions are alone what ?ender it useful ; nor would it perhaps, but for the uncommon abundance of rare species, be consulted at all.