8 .. Dr. Smirn’s Introductory Difcourfe. 
publifhed figures of plants from their own obfervation; and ever 
fince the middle of the fixteenth century the prefs throughout 
Europe has teemed with fimilar publications; certainly to the great 
advancement of botany, d the merit of thefe Works has 
been very various. ipanema NF 
For almoft two centuries after the revival of letters in Europe 
the attention of naturalifts was chiefly confined to the vegetable 
creation ; and although fince that time the animal and mineral 
kingdoms have received an eminent degree of cultivation, ftill 
botany has always kept its ground. The infinitely varied beauties 
of the vegetable tribe have, in every country, engaged fome ingenu- 
ous minds in the contemplation of this branch of the great family 
of nature, and excited them to inveftigate the laws by which it is 
governed. Whether their labours have been crowned with the 
{mile of princes, rewarded with worldly honours and emoluments, 
or only deftined to enliven the fcenes of rural retirement, to relieve 
the mind amid the bufy purfuits of active life, or add new charms 
to focial intercourfe; they have never failed to carry with them 
their own reward, in that fweet and innocent pleafure which rifes 
under the fteps of the botanift wherever he goes, in thofe fublime 
and delightful ideas of the Author of nature to which fuch enquiries 
lead, and the complacency they always excite in the mind. 
The inftitution of public botanic. gardens is a memorable æra 
in the hiftory of botany. The firft of thefe was, I believe, at Padua 
in 1533 *, where it ftill continues to make a tolerable figure, al- 
though now furpaffed by feveral others, which have had more 
powerful proteétors. The gardens of Florence, Pifa, Bologna and 
Leyden were foon after eftablithed, and all ftill exift. Nor muf I 
* The eftablifhment of a botanic garden at Rome about the year 1450 feems not fufe 
ficiently authenticated. See Sabbati Hortus Romanus. 
forget 
