VI PllEl'ACE. 



hand, Botany forming no part of general education, 

 even at the present moment, I have very often met 

 with ladies and gentlemen of highly cultivated under- 

 standings, open to all the charms which the beauties 

 of external nature ever exercises upon sensitive minds 

 -who, perhaps, fully understood the motions and 

 orbits of the planets, and knew their relative dis- 

 tances, their satellites, and their atmospheres, and 

 could even speculate on the constitution of their inha- 

 bitants, while the plants beneath their feet, on their 

 own earth, were unknown and almost entirely unre- 

 garded. Thus fully realizing the old fable of the 

 Grecian sages, who journeyed to the moon, and re- 

 turned without examining a tittle of its productions, 

 except the smoking viands that the hospitality of the 

 inhabitants had placed before them ! This neglect of 

 physical and mental enjoyment lying within the reach 

 of almost every body, appears to me to arise from a 

 false supposition that the toils attendant upon the 

 study of Botany would greatly counterbalance any 

 pleasure to be derived from it. In these papers, then, 

 I aim to show how incorrect such a conclusion is ; 

 and, in monthly order, my object has been to produce 

 delineations which, even to the general eye of those 

 unfamiliar with botanical terms, shall offer charms 

 which may tempt the leisure of those who desire a 

 pleasing and instructive occupation ; while I have 

 introduced incident to show that the botanist during 

 his rambles may still look out with all the gusto of a 

 traveller superadded to his scientific examinations- 



