It has been necessary to go beyond the strict limits of the history of British Botany in order to make it clear to what extent and at what period our two distinguished fellow-countrymen contributed to the development of the natural system of classification. Enough has been said to establish the importance and the opportuneness of their contributions: if Pisa was glorified by the birth of Systematic Botany, and Paris by its adolescence, Oxford and Cambridge were honoured by its renascence. The question concerning the respective merits of Morison and Ray finds perhaps its most satisfactory answer in the words of Linnaeus (Classes Plantarum, 1747, p. 65):—"Quamprimum Morisonus artis fundamentum restaurasset, eidem mox suam superstruxit methodum Rajus, quam dein toties reparavit, usque dum in ultima senectute emendatam et auctam emitteret": Morison relaid the foundation upon which Ray built. As Linnaeus points out, Ray enjoyed the advantage of a very long period of productive activity: in the thirty-four years that separated his Tables of Plants from his Methodus Emendata et Aucta, he had time to revise and remodel his system. Morison, on the contrary, was prevented by unfavourable circumstances from beginning the publication of his Method until late in life, and he was not permitted to see more than a fragment of it issue from the press.
It is probable that Ray was more truly a naturalist than was Morison: for in addition to his works on Method, he published not only his Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (1660), but also a Catalogus of British plants (1670, 2nd ed. 1677), almost the earliest work of the kind, only preceded by William How's Phytologia Britannica (1650), which developed into the first British Flora arranged systematically, the Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum (1690, 2nd ed. 1696). Morison published nothing on field-botany; his volume of the Historia contains, it is true, occasional mention of plants found in or near Oxford, but the finder of them seems always to have been the younger Bobart. Ray included in the Synopsis a list of plants that had been communicated to him by Bobart, with whom he seems to have been intimate, and expressed his indebtedness to Bobart's botanical skill.
But whether the palm be bestowed upon the one or the other, the fact remains that both were men of exceptional capacity, and that both did good work for British Botany, raising it to a level which commanded the respect and admiration of the botanical world; from which, as the succeeding lectures of this course will show, it was not allowed to sink. What Linnaeus said of Morison may be applied equally to Ray,—"Roma certe non uno die, nec ab uno condebatur viro. Ille tamen faces extinctas incendit, a quibus ignem mutuati sunt subsequentes, quibus datum ad lucidum magis focum objecta rimare" (Classes Plantarum, p. 33).
[NEHEMIAH GREW]
1641-1712
By AGNES ARBER
Ancestry and Life narrative—his versatility—state of Botany—Grew and Malpighi—Grew's bona fides vindicated—The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun—seed structure—his treatise on the Root—its dedication—The Anatomy of Trunks—The Anatomy of Plants—illustrations—Grew's conception of cells and tissues—the plant as a textile fabric—analogy with the animal body—medullary rays—secondary thickening—his understanding of external morphology—physiological notions—suggestions for experiments—importance of the habitat—the sexes of flowers—floral and seed structure—estimate of his contributions to Botany.
Nehemiah Grew, who, with the Italian botanist Marcello Malpighi, may be considered as co-founder of the science of Plant Anatomy, lived in stirring and troubled times. His life[2] extended from 1641 to 1712; that is to say, he was born the year before King Charles I proclaimed war upon the parliamentary forces, and he lived through the Protectorate, the reigns of Charles II, James II, William and Mary, and the greater part of the reign of Queen Anne. He came of a stock remarkable for courage and independence of mind. His grandfather, Francis Grew, is described as having been a layman, originally of good estate, but "crush'd" by prosecutions for non-conformity in the High Commission Court and Star Chamber. Francis Grew had a son Obadiah, who was a student of Balliol, and entered the Church. When the Civil War broke out, he sided with the parliamentary party, but was by no means a blind adherent of Cromwell, with whom he is said to have pleaded earnestly for the life of King Charles I. In 1662 Obadiah Grew resigned his living, being unable to comply with the Act of Uniformity. Twenty years later, as a man of seventy-five, he was convicted of a breach of the Five Mile Act, and imprisoned for six months in Coventry Gaol. But though by this time his sight had failed, his spirit was indomitable. Whilst in prison, he dictated a sermon every week to an amanuensis, who read it to several shorthand writers, each of whom undertook a number of copies; it was then distributed to various secret religious meetings, at which it was read. Nehemiah Grew was Obadiah's only son, and it is a curious fact that the year 1682, which witnessed the father's imprisonment, was the year in which the son published his magnum opus, The Anatomy of Plants, prefaced by an Epistle Dedicatory to "His most sacred Majesty Charles II." So far as one can gather, Nehemiah Grew's career seems to have been singularly unaffected by the political crises that took place around him. The deliberate style of his writing certainly suggests a studious and unruffled life. He was an undergraduate at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and afterwards took his doctor's degree in medicine at Leyden, at the age of thirty. He seems to have been successful in his profession, and we learn from the sermon[3] preached at his funeral that he died suddenly, whilst still actively engaged in his practice. In the words of the sermon, "It was his Honour and Happiness, to be Serviceable to the last Moments of Life."