Whether ',the leaders of natural system in the] French school of botany have thought with us on' this ,subject, it might seem invidious to inquire too nicely. It were too much to expect that every one of their pupils, half learned and half experienced) however commendable their seal and enthusiasms should have done so. Nor is science in any danger if they do not. They must improve the system of Jussieu, betore they can overturn that of Linnaeus ; and if this were accomplished, the nomenclature and definitions of the learned Swede would still form an impregnable fortress, before which they must perish, or seek for shelter within. This dilemma has been, long age, but too clearly perceived by the rivals of the fame of Linnaeus, particularly by such of the French school as have been actuated by a truly con temptible national partiality, instead of a disinterest ed love of science and truth. Hence the so often repeated exclamations against Linnaeus, as a mere nomenclator. Of his didactic precision, and philo sophical principles of discrimination, such critics were not jealous, for they could not estimate the value nor the consequences of these. But they could all feel that the nomenclature of Tournefort was giving way, and that their efforts to support it were vain. The writer of these remarks has perceived traces of this feeling in almost every publication and conversation, of a certain description of botanists. He has likewise perceived that it would gradually subside, and that the interests of science were secure. The nomenclature of Linnaeus has in the end pre vailed, and it were unjust now, to the greatest bota nists of the French school, to deny them the honour of liberality on this head.
It is time for us to close this article, with a view of the principles, upon which the eminent system atics, to whom we have so often alluded, have plan ned and executed their schemes of botanical classi fication.
Here the learned and truly estimable Bernard de Jussieu, the contemporary of Linnaeus in the earlier part of his career, first claims our notice. This great practical botanist, too diffident of his own knowledge, extensive as it was, to be over anxious to stand forth as a teacher, did not promulgate any scheme of natural arrangement till the year 1759, when the royal botanic garden at Trianon was sub mitted to his direction. His system was published by his nephew in 1789, at the head of his own work, of which it makes the basis. It appears in the form of a simple list of genera, under the name of each order, without any definition, just like the Fragmenta of Linnesus, at the end of his Genera Plantarum.
In 1763 aactive and zealous systematic, M. Adanson, made himselfknown to the world, by the publication of his Families des Plantes. In this learned and ingenious, though whimsical and pe dantic, work, the great task of defining natural or ders by technical characters is first attempted. His affected orthography and arbitrary nomenclature render it scarcely possible, without disgust, to trace his ideas ; which however, when developed, prove less original than they at first appear. His work is
written avowedly to supersede the labours of Linnaeus, against whom, after courting his correspondence, he took some personal displeasure; and yet many of his leading characters are borrowed from the sexual 'system. The discriminative marks of his 58 families are taken from the following sources—leaves, sex of Ike flowers, situation of the flowers with respect to the germen, form and situation of the corolla, Keens, germane, and seeds. Every family is divided into several sections, under each of which the genera are in like manner synoptically arranged, and dis criminated by their leaves, inflorescence, calyx, co rolla, stamens, pistil, fruit, and seeds. In the detail of his system, Adanson labours to overset the prin ciple, so much insisted on by Linnaeus and his school, and to which.the great names of Conrad Gesner, and Coesalpinus are chiefly indebted for their botani cal fame, that the genera of plants are to be cha racterized by the parts of fructification alone. The experienced botanist knows that this is often but a dispute of words ; Linnaeus having, in arranging the umbelliferous plants, resorted to the inflorescence, under the denomination of a receptacle ; see his 45th natural order. But it appears to us that the characters deduced from thence are in themselves faulty, being often uncertain, and not seldom unna tural; and that the plants in question may be better discriminated by their flowers and seeds. Adanson however prefers the inflorescence, even in the Verti ciliate of Linnaeus ; for no reason, that we can dis cover, but because Linnaeus has so much better de fined the genera of those plants by the calyx and co rolla. It were a needless and ungrateful task to carp at the mistakes of this or any writer on natural claisification, with regard to the places allotted for difficult genera, because the human intellect must faulter in unravelling the intricate mysteries of Na ture. But surely, when Plant ago is placed with Buddlcea in one section of the Jasmines, and Dia peneia with Callicarpa in another; when the most natural genus of Lavandula is divided and widely se parated ; when Cassytha is ranged with Statice, Et-l ocate/4m, and the Proteacee, in one place ; Geoffrey& with Melia, Rhus, Sapindus and Ruta in another, we may be allowed to wonder, and to doubt whe ther we are contemplating a natural or an artifi cial system. It does not appear that Adanson made many proselytes. He haunted the botanical societies. of Paris in our time, without associating with any ; nor was his extensive knowledge turned to much practical account. Linnaeus has made but one slight remark, that we can find, in his own copy of the Families des Planks, nor could he study deeply what was, undoubtedly, very difficult for him to read. He certainly never noticed Adanson's attacks, unless the satyrical sketch of the Botanophili, at the end of his Regnant Vegetabile, (see the beginning of Syst. Veg. ed. 14.) be partly aimed at this author. To ap ply the whole of it to him would be unjust, though much is very characteristic.