STUDY XI. 113 



fenting. Try to defcribe a man feature by feature, 

 limb by limb; be ever fo exact, yet you never 

 will be able to give me his portrait : but if you 

 refer him to fome known perfonage ; if you tell me, 

 for example, that he is of the make and mien of a 

 Don Quixote; or with a nofe like that of St. Charles 

 Baromeo, and fo on, and you paint me his picture 

 in four words. It is to the whole of an object that 

 the ignorant, an epithet which includes the greater! 

 part of Mankind, attach themfelves in the fuit 

 inftance, in order to acquire the knowledge of it. 



It would, therefore, be of elTentia] importance 

 to have, in Botany, an alphabet of colours, favours, 

 fmells, forms, and aggregations, derived from our 

 moft common plants. Thofe elementary charac- 

 ters would enable us to exprefs ourfelves exactly 

 in all the parts of Natural Hiftory, and to prefent 

 to ourfelves relations equally new and curious. 



In hope that perfons of fuperior intelligence may 

 hereafter be induced to take up the fubject, I pro- 

 ceed to the difcuffion of it with what ability I 

 have, notwithstanding the embarrafTment of lan- 

 guage. 



When we fee a multitude of plants, of different 

 forms, vegetate on the fame foil, there is a difpo- 

 fition to believe, that thofe of the fame climate 



vol. \u. 1 grow 



