Dr. Surru's Introductory Difcourfe. 13 
names which had been introduced, feemed to render it at length 
neceffary for the prefervation of the fcience that fome great fyfte- 
matic genius fhould undertake to digeft the confufed mafs, and pro- 
fiting of the hints of Gefner and Cæfalpinus, reduce into order 
the vaft materials, with which botany was in a manner over- 
whelmed, rather than enriched. But this event, fo much to be 
defired, was not yet to take place in its full extent. An eminent 
fervice was however rendered to botany by the two illuftrious 
brothers John and Cafpar Bauhin, with whom I fhall clofe the hif- 
tory of the fixteenth century, and enter on that of the feventeenth. 
John Bauhin was in a great meafure formed as a botanift under 
Gefner, but not having a turn for fyftem, he did not in that refpe& 
learn much from his great teacher. He devoted a life of more than 
70 years to a Critical tigation of all that had been written be- 
fore him, and made many qune obfervations as well as many 
original difcoveries. But he opened no new path in botany. His 
labours were conducted on the fame plan as thofe of his predeceffors, 
The fruit of his ftudies is nothing lefs than an Univerfal Hiftory 
of Plants, which being left in MS. at his death in 1613, was not 
publifhed till 1650, when it appeared in three volumes folio. Like 
all pofthumous works it has defe&s, which probably it would not 
have had if publifhed by its author. It is a monument of labour 
and erudition, and contains fo much information and fo many eluci- 
dations of preceding authors, as to be ftill in great eftimation, not- 
withftanding its want of order and the rudenefs of the figures. 
This work paved the way for Cafpar Bauhin in the much more 
important and original one which he undertook and happily per- 
fected, the publication of which forms one of the moft remarkable 
æras in botany, and which was firft printed in 1623, under the 
title of Pinax Theatri Botanici. This was meant, as its name im- 
ports, as an index to all the botanical knowledge then in the world, 
2 and 
