278 Dr. Smitx's Od/fervations on the Britifh Species of Bromus. 
has added feveral plants upon infufficient grounds, either as {pecies 
or natives, and has inferted others, fuppofed to be new, that exift 
under other denominations in the original work. Indeed the 
changes he has made among the fynonyms, not being always 
_marked, and proving often erroneous, oblige us on that head ftill 
to confult the edition of 1696. 
The Synopfis of Ray, as publifhed by Dillenius.in 1724, was the 
ftandard book of Englifh Botanifts, till the works of Linnzus, more 
fimple, compendious and perfpicuous, if not more free from error, 
than any that had before appeared, came into general ufe through- 
. out Europe. England, long accuftomed to take the lead in fcience, 
would have feemed fo far ina {tate of barbarifm, if her vegetable 
productions had remained unarranged according to the new 
fyftem; and fhe would have been of as little importance in Natural 
Science as France, partly from the fame caufe, and partly from her 
dancing after the bubbles of glittering theory, has till lately been. 
Dr. Hill, a ready and experienced writer, and Mr. Hudfon, a 
more accurate and praétical obferver, each undertook, about the 
fame time, to make the pupils of Ray, already become veterans in 
his fervice, fubmit to Linnzan difcipline. Many of them found 
the advantage of it; fome proved refractory, and are forgotten; 
while a multitude of new difciples, allured by the attraétivenefs of 
_ the new fyftem, and the doétrines by which it was fupported, have 
been daily advancing its utility and celebrity. The Flora Anglica 
of Hudfon has, almoft from its firft publication, to this hour, been 
the claffical book of Englith Botanifts. {t has been the guide and 
ground-work of local Floras, as the Flora Cantabrigienfis of Mr. 
Relhan, Flora Oxonien/fis of Dr. Sibthorp, and even the Flora Scotica 
of Mr. Lightfoot; for I by no means intend to detraét from the 
practical merit of the authors of any of thofe works, when I affert, 
é that 
