475 



ance in the manufactory of the place, depend for im- 

 provement. We trust the reader will pardon this digres- 

 sion from the subject more immediately before us, to 

 which we shall now return. 



Some of the more learned students of English plants, 

 among the lovers of botany in Norwich, had long been 

 conversant with the works of Ray, and even the Historia 

 Muscorum of Dillenius. They were prepared therefore 

 to admire, and to profit by, the philosophical writings of 

 Linnaeus. Hence originated the Elements of Botany, 

 p\iblished in 1775, by Mr. Hugh Rose ; who was aided 

 in the undertaking by his equally learned friend, the Rev. 

 Henry Bryant, of whose acuteness and botanical skill no 

 better proof is wanting, than his having found and deter- 

 mined, nine years before, the minute Tillaa muscosa, for 

 the first time in this island. Numerous pupils were eager 

 to improve themselves by the assistance of such masters, 

 and amongst others the writer of these pages imbibed, 

 from their ardour and their friendly assistance, the first 

 rudiments of a pursuit that has proved the happiness and 

 the principal object of his life. 



London became, of course, the focus of this science, 

 as well as of every other. Of the English Universities, 

 Cambridge most fulfilled its duty, in rendering its public 

 establishments useful to the ends for which they were 

 founded and paid. The names of Martyn, both father 

 and son, have long maintained a distinguished rank in 

 botany ; and the latter, for many years, has inculcated the 

 true principles of Linneean science from the professor's 

 chair. A botanic garden was established, by a private 

 individual, Dr. Walker, about the period of which we are 

 speaking. A Linnaean Flora Cantabrigiensis, by Mr. 

 Relhan, has renewed the celebrity of that field, in which 

 Ray had formerly laboured ; and there has always existed 

 a little community of Cambridge botanists, though fluc- 

 tuating and varying, according to circumstances. At 

 Oxford, botany, so vigorously established by Sherard and 



