Letter to R.K. Greville, LL.D : being an answer to certain statements contained in a pamphlet entitled "Singular specimens of the Edinburgh practice of criticism, by John Joseph Griffin" / by John Hutton Balfour.

Date:: 1851

Credit: Letter to R.K. Greville, LL.D : being an answer to certain statements contained in a pamphlet entitled "Singular specimens of the Edinburgh practice of criticism, by John Joseph Griffin" / by John Hutton Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$which the reviewer lias arrived, in regard to the comparative merits of the two editions of the Manual of Botany. This I cannot do, even to gratify Mr. Griffin. Had. I chosen to review the second edition of the book in a public journal, the allusions to my own name would have been less complimentary, and my fuller knowledge of the circumstances of the case might probably have led me to assume a graver tone in exposing the faults of the book in its latest shape. But, in regard, Jirst^ to the omission to correct errors pointed out by friendly reviewers of the former edition—secondly, to the absence of much additional matter which the more advanced state of botanical knowledge clearly de- manded—and thirdly, to the occurrence of serious mistakes in the new edition, I could not have differed very materially from the author of the review. In adverting very shortly to these three points, I may state that I do not know who the editor of the second edition of my work is. All the information with which Mr. Griffin favom-s us on that subject is, that he is a gentleman well acquainted with botanical literature. In a letter from himself to the editor of the North British Agriculturist (Mr. Griffin's Pamphlet, page 24) he assumes the designation of a Professor of Botany. All I know of him is, that his new edition of my book is not such as I think it ought to have been, or as I choose to be responsible for, and that his letter just referred to is written in a tone of querulous vitu- peration, which I have no desire to imitate. On one point I must confess some sympathy for this Professor of Botany, I think he has been somewhat harshly dealt with in being com- pelled by Mr. Griffin to edit the second edition of my work anonymously. If it be true, as he asserts, that the work, as it has issued from his hands, is several hundredfold more con-ect than the first edition, it was sm-ely cruel that a gentleman so jealously sensitive on the subject of his own literary and scien- tific character, should have been deprived of the credit of having coiTCCted my innumerable blunders. It is possible, however, that he may not attribute the same importance that ]\Ir. Griffin does, to the editorial labour involved in the removal of errors of the press, or mere verbal or grammatical inaccuracies overlooked in revising the proofs of the first edition; such, for example, as vary'''' for varies,^'' ^'■contains' iox wntain,''^ Mtckam'' for$