286 Examination of the Matured Framework [BOOKII.

time even for the mechanical part of his work, for in 1836 he published his treatise on the latest advances in vegetable anatomy and physiology, a quarto volume of 319 pages with twenty-two plates, which gained the prize from the Teyler society in Haarlem ; the figures are well drawn, the style is that of a practised writer, but the matter of the work is some- what superficially handled. A year later (1837) appeared the first volume of his ' Neues System der Pflanzenphysiologie,' and two more volumes by the year 1839, a work also rich in new observations and figures. In the course of the same years (1836-39) he wrote detailed annual reports of the results of investigations in the field of physiological botany, which fill a portly volume, and published in 1837 a prize-essay on the organs of secretion, and in 1836 a sketch of the geography of plants ; in 1840 appeared a treatise on fructification and polyembryony, and a posthumous work on vegetable patho- logy in 1841. The number of works thus given to the world between the years 1836 and 1840, though partly prepared before that period, is so unprecedented, that it is impossible for the composer to have maturely meditated his facts or their inner connection, and the study of his writings shows that he was often too hasty in propounding new views, and in reject- ing or accepting the statements of others. The style is per- spicuous and flowing, and animated by a genuine scientific spirit ; but the expressions are often inexact, the ideas not unfrequently immature, and points of fundamental importance are sometimes neglected for unimportant and secondary matters. These faults are the result of hasty production ; we must set against them conspicuous merits ; Meyen had an eye open to every question in phytotomy and left nothing un- noticed, while he made it his constant aim to give clear general views of his subject as a connected whole, and enable his reader to see his way in every direction, in order to make phytotomy and vegetable physiology accessible to wider circles

of scientific men ; the like praise is due to his drawings from