232 HISTORY OF ESSEX BOTANY. 



Society on its incorporation (1663). He published various works, 

 including A Collection of A cts of Parliament . . concerning . 

 Grants to the College of Physicians {1660), The Art of Glass: how 

 to colour Glass, Enamels, Lakes, (s^c, translated from Antonio Neri's 

 De Arte Vitviarid (1662),''° and an edition of the original Latin 

 (1668), and several papers in the early volumes of the Philosophical, 

 Transactions, which are enumerated by Pulteney {loc. cit.) and 

 include some dealing with experiments on vegetation, the 

 Lincolnshire fens, and the Cornish mines. The Pinax was 

 undertaken, he says, at the request of a bookseller, to replace 

 How's Phytologia, when that work had gone out of print ; and it 

 was to have been written in conjunction with a Dr. Dale, who, 

 however, died soon after the work was planned. This was not 

 the Samuel Dale to whom we shall have to rsfer at length later 

 on. Merrett also states in his Epistola ad Lectorem that he had 

 purchased figures, engraved at the order of Thomas Johnson, 

 to illustrate the work. These figures were, however, never 

 published; but remain (though Pulteney writes " nor do I find 

 any further notices of them ") in the British Museum library.*' 



Pulteney writes'*^ apologetically of the undoubted short- 

 comings of Merrett's Pinax : — 



" Dr. Merret, though unquestionably a man of learning, taste, and 

 considerable information in natural history, seems to have engaged in it too 

 late in life, to admit of his making that proficiency, which the design required. 

 Add to this, that being fixed in London, and closely engaged in the practice of 

 his profession, he was rendered incapable of investigating plants, in the distant 

 parts of the kingdom. He however engaged Thomas Willisel to travel for him ; 

 and he tells us that Willisel was employed by him for five successive summers. 

 His sor\, Christopher Merret, aXso ma.de excursions for the same purpose; and 

 Mr. Yauldon Goodyer furnished him with manuscripts of his grandfather. By 

 these assistances Dr. Merret procured a large number of English plants, and a 

 knowledge of the Loci Natales. Nevertheless, he was not possessed of that 

 critical and intimate acquaintance with the subject, which might have enabled 

 him to distinguish, with sufficient accuracy, the species from varieties. . 

 At the end of the Catalogue is subjoined a rude disposition of vegetables into 

 classes. . This he hoped to have improved, against the time of a second 



46 This translation was privately re-printed in folio in 1826 at Sir T. Phillip's press at 

 Middle Hill. 



47 The volume is catalogued ' 441. i. 6. Plants. A Collection of figures with MS. notes 

 by C. Merrett. London, 1670, fol." It contains 97 double pages, on which are 762 figures, 

 evidently merely proofs, the " notes " being only Merrett's MS. names. There is no title- 

 page ; but the first page is inscribed as follows : — " This book did belong to Dr. Merret author 

 of the Pinax, &c. The wryting in it is his hand. Mr. Bateman the bookseller who sold it to 

 me (19 Sept., 1695) said that these cutts or figures were made by Dr. Johnson's command 

 (qui emaculavit Gerardumi in order to serve a new herbal which he designed to set forth. Mr. 

 Bateman had this Dr. Merret's executors who sold him the Doctor's (Merret's I mean) 

 Library. — Robert Gray, M.D." 



4^ Op. cit. pp. 292-4. 



