27 8 Dr. Smiths Observations on the Brltljh Species of Bra mus. 



has added feveral plants upon infufficient grounds, either as fpecies 

 or natives, and has inferted others, fuppofed to be new, that exift 

 under other denominations in the original work. Indeed the 

 changes he has made among the fynonyms, not being always 

 marked, and proving often erroneous, oblige us on that head ftill 

 to confult the edition of i6qq\ 



The Synog/ts of Ray, as publiihed by Dillenius in 1724, was the 

 ftandard book of Engliih Botanifts, till the works of Linn^us, more 

 fimple, compendious and perfpicuous, if not more free from error, 

 than any that had before appeared, came into general ufe through- 

 out Europe. England, long accuftomed to take the lead in fcience, 

 would have feemed fo far in a ftate of barbarian, if her vegetable 

 productions had remained unarranged according to the new 

 fyftem; and {he would have been of as little importance in Natural 

 Science as France, partly from the fame caufe, and partly from her 

 dancing after the bubbles of glittering theory, has till lately been. 



Dr. Hill, a ready and experienced writer, and Mr. Hudfon, a 

 more accurate and practical obferver, each undertook, about the 

 fame time, to make the pupils of Ray, already become veterans ia 

 his fervice, fubmit to Linnsean difcipline. Many of them found 

 the advantage of it ; fome proved refractory, and are forgotten ; 

 while a multitude of new difciples, allured by the attractivenefs of 

 the new fyftem, and the doctrines by which it was fupported, have 

 been daily advancing its utility and celebrity. The Flora Anglica 

 of Hudfon has, almoft from its firft publication, to this hour, been. 

 the claffical book of Engliih Botanifts. ft has been the guide and 

 ground-work of local Floras, as the Flora Cantabrigienfts of Mr. 

 Relhan, Flora Oxonieiifis of Dr. Sibthorp, and even the Flora Scotica 

 of Mr. Lightfoot ; for I by no means intend to detract from the 

 pradical merit of the authors of any of thofe works, when I affert, 



that 



