APPENDIX. 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, 

 Read at the London Institution, May 2nd, 1825. 



THE history of botany as a science has often been given 

 in various forms and languages. It makes a principal 

 part of an Introductory Discourse which I had the honour 

 of delivering at the opening of the Linnsean Society in 

 1788, and which is published in the Linnaean Transac- 

 tions and elsewhere. The subject, under a rather different 

 point of view, is continued in the article "Botany " of the 

 Supplement to the Edinburgh Cyclopaedia. It would ill 

 become me to take up your time with what is detailed in 

 those essays, though I have heard much of the former in- 

 troduced into the lectures of other teachers ; and if it 

 tended to entertain or inform their hearers, my principal 

 ends in the original composition were answered. I con- 

 ceive that a writer on scientific subjects is most honoured, 

 when his observations and discoveries are used, without 

 mistrust or particular acknowledgement, as current coin, 

 whose value is undisputed, and whose stamp and date are 

 easily ascertained by those who are curious in such parti- 



