The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.
§ 37. Lindley
Another striking feature of the British botanists of a hundred years ago was their determined and steady effort to replace the artificial Linnaean system by a more natural one. Prominent among the men who gradually evolved a sounder view of the interrelationship of plants were the elder Hooker, Robert Brown, Sir Joseph Banks (“the greatest Englishman of his time”), Bentham and, especially, John Lindley. Lindley was professor at the newly-founded university college in Gower street; and this institution took a very prominent part in the science of the century, being untrammelled by restrictions which sorely retarded the advancement of science at the older universities.