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22 INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY.
a great improvement. His distinction of the species being
formed from characters visible in the plants themselves,
instead of the place vi^here found, their size compared with
others, or their use, is a still greater improvement, li'we
compare his manner of printing the synoptic tables of
the genera, prefixed to each class, with the tables of Ray,
or Knaut, the superiority of his method will be evident.
The same superiority exists in the manner of printing the
few descriptions he has published. By always observing
the same order in treating of the several parts, breaking
the description into short paragraphs, and using a different
type for the leading word of the several divisions of a
paragraph, the eye of a person accustomed to his works
glances immediately to the information that is required.
These real improvements, added to the industry which
he manifested in publishing the successive improvements
of his system, and the cheapness of his works, in which
the expense of figures was avoided, brought his system
into vogue, particularly in Germany and England, it being
a striking feature in the national characters of their inha-
bitants to prefer the works of foreigners to those of their
countrymen.
In France, however, although he was followed by many,
yet the greater national pride prevalent there forbade them
to discard their own Tournefort to oblivion. Linnajus had
pronounced tlie discovery of the natural arrangement of
plants, as attempted by Ray, to be nearly hopeless; but the
French botanists did not so easily despair ; Adanson, Bernard
Jussieu, his nephew Anthony Jussieu the present
professor at Paris, Lamarcke, and still more lately De
CandoUe, the present professor at Geneva, have again attempted
this task, and have certainly carried it to a degree
of perfection, as may be seen in this work, in vvhich the
plants of the British islands are arranged according to the
latest improvements of these celebrated botanists.
The authors since Ray may seem, perhaps, to be passed
over in too rapid a manner ; but when we consider, that
since his time the uses of vegetables have been almost entirely
neglected, and that the Linnean school has principally
supplied us with authors who have new arranged,
and new named okl things; so that they have plunged us
again into tlie same chaos, from which we were rescued by
C. Bauhin in his Pinax, the notice taken of these name-
setters and rangers, as Hooke would emjjhatically call
them, is fully sufficient for their merit. A few demand