Co Sir JOSEPH BANKS, Bart. 

 Prefident of the Royal Society. 

 S I R, 



THE rare and excellent example you 

 have gi^en, fo honourable to fcience, 

 bf foregoing the more brilliant advantages of 

 irth and fortune, to feek for knowledge 

 hrough difficulties and dangers, at a period 

 jf life when the allurements of pleafure are 

 :aft refiftable, and in an age when the ge- 

 eral effeminacy of manners feemed beyond 

 ' hat of former times to difcourage every vir- 

 uous exertion, juftly entitles you to the 

 preeminence you enjoy in the philofophical 

 world. In your extenfive purfuits after na- 

 :ural knowledge, Botany has been difting- 

 lifhed by your peculiar attention ; of this, 



the 



