APOLOGY TO MY SUBSCRIBERS. 



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It was my original idea, had the times been propitious, to have greatly enlarged this part of the 

 work, and presented the world with seventy PrCTUREsauE Botanical coloured Plates, in 

 which case another distribution of them would have been made, and every class illustrated by 

 SELECT EXAMPLES of the most interesting flowers, accmnteiy described, and immortalized hj poetry: 

 but during the progress of this expensive work, with the exception of a few months respite, infu- 

 riate war has constantly and violently raged, which, like a devouring conflagration, destroys 

 every thing before it ; commerce, agriculture, and the Arts, all the sources of public prosperity, 

 and private happiness, are by it dried up and annihilated. The once moderately rich very justly 

 now complain they are exhausted through taxes laid on them to pay armed men to diffuse 

 rapine, fire, and murder, over civilized Europe. One Monarch dares, in the face of that religion 

 which teaches no difference among men, to wage universal war only from motives of a cursed am- 

 bition ! All kinds of crimes are now every hour accomplishing on the ensanguined theatre of 

 cruel War ! The earth is inundated with human blood ! The man of sensibility, his heart over- 

 whelmed with grief, and shame, beholds such atrocious scenes with horror! There is no counter- 

 part in NATURE to compare with such Men. Tygers do not even gorge themselves with the 

 blood of Tygers! 



parcit 



Cognatis maculis similis fera 



Juvenal. , 



O that Kings and Princes of the earth, would hear the voice of exalted Reason, and learn 

 WISDOM ! 



TRUE GLORY does not consist in extent of dominion, but in the prosperity and happiness 



OF ANY GIVEN NUMBER OF SUBJECTS : 



Under the present pressure of calamitous circumstances, it would be wrong for me to tres- 

 pass any longer upon the purses of a public-spirited body of subscribers, most of whom would, I 

 am certain, generously have acquiesced in my original more extensive scheme, even in these awful 

 times; yet some feiu might have seriously felt the additional price \ therefore, I trust, a candid and 

 enlightened public, will cheerfully accept what I have been able to perform, and will at least 

 allow me this honour, which is all I request, 



EST QUODAM PRODIRE TENUS, Sl NON DATUR ULTRA. 



HORACE. J^^ 





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