CXXVIU FLORA OF BERKSHIRE 



company with Sherard into France and Italy. Taking the route 

 through HoUand they reached Rome in 1698, and proceeded from there 

 to Naples and Venice. In the following year Sherard was again in 

 Eome, and there, at Tournefort's suggestion, he contemplated the 

 continuation of Bauhin's Pmaa;. In 1700 he became Tutor to Henry, 

 second Duke of Beaufort, and held that appointment for two years ; 

 during this time he assisted Ray in the revision of the material for 

 the third volume of the Historia Flantarum, to which he contributed 

 more than a thousand plants : a part of his additions in his own 

 handwriting is preserved in the Botanical Department of the British 

 Museum. In March, 1701, he writes from Badminton that he has 

 undertaken to adjust the names of the Mosses of Mr. Ray, those of 

 Mr. Bobart in the third volume [of the Historia], and of Tournefort 

 in his History of the Plants about Paris. After occupying the post 

 of Commissioner for the Sick and Wounded in London in 1703, 

 and for some portion at least of the next year ^, he was appointed 

 Consul at Smyrna. Here he continued the task of compiling the 

 Pinax, but found botanizing difficult, ' rogues swarming even up to 

 the gates of Smirna.' We learn from a letter dated March 25, 1709, 

 and given by Ballard (vol. xxvii. 6), that he visited the six other 

 sister-churches of Asia Minor. Sherard writes that Hhe greatest 

 part of the inscriptions which Mr. Chishull designs to print were 

 copied in a voiage I made with some of the factory three years past to 

 visit the seven Churches of Asia. We made an excursion to Geira 

 (Aphrodisias of the antients) where we copied near an hundred. I have 

 since met with some very usefull ones at old Teium, a day's journey 

 hence : as soon as our convoy is departed, I design (if I can possibly 

 make a company) to go along the shear as far as Halicarnassus, and 

 return by Geira (to correct those already copied), Mylassus (Mylasa), 

 Tralles, &c., so that both what I have in my house here (which I de- 

 sign to present to our University), and what I may expect to meet in 

 other parts, I believe will fill another volume in folio.' He hoped to 

 find many new jjlants in the journey to Halicarnassus, but was dis- 

 apiDointed, and was so discouraged that he almost gave up the pursuit 

 of botany. He occupied himself for a time with antiquarian subjects ; 

 but in 1 7 14, after upwards of six hundred medals had been stolen 

 from his house, he retui'ned with renewed zeal to his old studies. He 

 left Smyrna about the end of 17 16 and spent the following year in 

 travelling through Europe, reaching England towards its close. James 

 Sherard writes to Richardson in August, 17 16, that he expects his 

 l)rother in the ensuing winter, or spring at farthest, in order to finish 



1 In the Richardson CorrcsjJondence, at p. 81, there is a letter from Sherard 

 dated March, 1704, and written from the Commissioners Office in London j 

 he therefore did not leave England for Smyrna so earlj- as 1703. 



