Jo8 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



and nouriihing fruit, which lafls all the year round, 

 and (lands in no need of any of the arts of 

 cookery. 



Father du Tertre is not lefs happy, nor lefs ac- 

 curate, in his botanical defcriptions. Thefe two 

 travellers give you, at a llngle ftroke, by means of 

 trivial fimilitudes, a precife idea of a foreign ve- 

 getable, which you would feareb for to no purpofe 

 in the Greek names of our firfl-rate Botanifts. 

 This mode of defcribing Nature, by ordinary 

 images and fenfations, is held in contempt by the 

 learned ; but I confider it as the only one capable 

 of exhibiting pictures, that have a refemblance, 

 and as the true character of genius. With fuch 

 affiflance, you will be enabled to paint every na- 

 tural object, and may difpenfe with methods and 

 fyftems ; without it you will only coin phrafes, 



Let us now fuggeft a few thoughts refpecting 

 the form of natural objects. It is here that the 

 language of Botany, and even thofe of the other 

 Arts, are peculiarly barren. Geometry, whofe par- 

 ticular object this is, has invented fcarcely more 

 than a dozen of regular curves, which are known 

 to only a fmall number of the learned ; and Nature 

 employs an infinite multitude of them in the forms 

 of flowers alone. Some of the ufes of thefe we fhall 

 prefently indicate. Not that I mean to make of a 



ftudy 



