22, Dr. Smitn’s Introductory. Difcourfe. 
with the Indies; whereas the gardens of Holland were at this time 
overflowing with riches from the moft diftant parts of the globe. 
The Amfterdam garden under the. care of the Commelins, was 
now one of the firft in Eos and that of Leyden was rendered 
celebrated by the catalo : hed by. Herman. Holland had 
~ moreover the glory of producing at this. time that moft fumptuous 
and excellent work, the Hortus Malabaricus ; by which a new world 
was in a manner laid open to the botanifts of Europe, and from 
which they learned with furprife, that the knowledge of plants had 
made almoft as much. progrefs in the remote regions of Afia, as in 
their own part of the world. 
But the ftudy of nature was no where making fuch an uniformly 
fteady progrefs as in Sweden. At Upfal, under the aufpices of the 
great Rudheck, Was laid the foundation of what Mr. Stillingfleet 
. inus | 3 | ; and which 
Was paa S aii to give s to the rt of the world. Rarely | 
has fuch a variety of profound and extenfive learning been united 
as in Rudbeck. I have already mentioned his anatomical merit in 
difcovering the lymphatics. In antiquities, efpecially thofe of the 
northern nations, and in the learned languages, his knowledge was 
unbounded. In botany he had erected to himielf what might 
reafonably have been thought a € monumentum ære perennius,” 
in one of the greateft undertakings of the kind, a colle&tion of fine 
wooden cuts of all the plants then known. They were to have. 
been arranged and named according to Bauhin's Pinax, in 12 large 
volumes folio. But two volumes were fcarcely printed, when in 
1702 a dreadful fire reduced almoft all Upíal to afhes, and with it 
the work of Rudbeck, and many thoufand wooden blocks already 
cut, befides almoft all the materials of an hiftory of Lapland com- 
pofed by his fon, who indeed had a principal hand in the great 
work of which I am fpeaking. It can fcarcely be thought an im- 
peachment 
