14 Dr. Smitu’s Introductory Difcour fe. 
and its author exultingly ftyles it the labour of 40 years. In this 
work about 6000 plants are arranged in twelve books, with fome 
flight traces of fyftem, and each plant is diftinguifhed by a kind of 
defcriptive name, under which are placed the names given it by 
every preceding author. Ray has very juftly remarked, that befides 
errors and repetitions incident to the moft wary in fo vaft an under- 
taking, Bauhin’s Pinax contains fome hundreds of plants there 
mentioned as fpecies, which have fince been found to be only varie- 
ties; and if this was true in the time of Ray, it is much more fo at 
prefent. Notwithftanding fuch imperfeétions, this work has been 
found fo ufeful, and indeed fo neceffary, that it continued the gene- 
. ral dictionary of botanifts, till fuperfeded by the publications of 
Tournefort and Linnzus, and is even now the only refource of thofe 
who with to ftudy the authors whofe works are prior toit. But this 
is not ail which the active mind of Cafper Bauhin undertook. He 
publifhed an excellent edition of Matthiolus with many additions; 
and has illuftrated about 600 new or heretofore miftaken plants in 
his Prodromus, publifhed firft in 1620, and afterwards with an im- 
proved edition of his Pinax, in 1671, which is that moft in ufe. 
He likewife meditated a complete hiftory of all the plants men- 
tioned in his Pinax, and finifhed, as it 1s faid, three books, of which 
the firft only was publifhed by his fon in 1658, with figures. It 
contains graffes and fome liliaceous plants. Befides all thefe bota- 
nical labours, Cafpar Bauhin praétifed medicine with great fuccefs, 
and was fo eminently fkilled in anatomy as to have been ftyled in 
his time the prince of anatomifts. He died in 1624, aged 64, being 
about 20 years younger than his brother. I have feen a great part 
of his herbarium at Bafil, in the hands of Mr. De la Chenal, pro- 
feffor of botany there. This herbarium is ineftimable on account 
of the difficulty of determining many of Bauhin’s plants by his 
cere alone, and its worthy poffeffor devotes it to the pur- 
pofes 
