It were more reasonable to admire the ingenuity displayed in the construction of so simple a system, than to blame the unsuccessful attempt to classify, according to their essential peculiarities, objects whose multiplied relations have, to the present day, defied the most accomplished naturalists. With respect to the nomenclature, it is sufficient to remark, that the classes and orders bear appropriate names, derived from various circumstances. Thus in the class _Mammalia_, so denominated because the animals composing it bear mammae and suckle their young, are the orders _Primates_ or Nobles, _Bruta_, _Ferae_, &c. The generic names are always substantives, as _Phoca_, _Canis_, _Lepus_, &c.; and the specific names are either adjectives, as _Phoca barbata_, _Canis familiaris_, _Lepus timidus_, or, in certain rarer cases, substantives, as _Canis Lupus_, _Ursus Arctos_, &c. We now proceed to the examination of another kingdom. The second volume of the Systema Naturae contains an arrangement of all the species of vegetables known to Linnaeus. It is in this department that our author has been generally allowed to excel, and his system, after undergoing some modifications, remains in use at the present day; nor is it likely ever to be superseded by any other merely artificial arrangement. Before proceeding to a general account of this celebrated scheme, it may be useful to take a brief view of those by which it was preceded. It is obvious, that without a methodical disposition of plants, and a fixed nomenclature, it would be impossible for an individual to retain the knowledge of the numerous and diversified forms which these present. Descriptions, moreover, would be unintelligible, and we should find it difficult or impracticable to ascertain the species of which authors might write.