519 
A peculiarity in Sir James’s literary compositions 
may be mentioned; it is, that he seldom wrote any 
hing more than once, and his manuscript was 
sent to the press as it came from his hand, without 
any material correction or interlineation, in a dis- 
tinct legible character, that appeared more like a 
corrected copy than arough draught. This was the 
case not only in scientific description, but with other 
compositions, such as his biographical memoirs of 
botanists printed in Rees’s Cyclopedia. 
The person who records this was first struck with 
the circumstance when he wrote the Life of Dom- 
bey*, which came 
“Warm from the heart, and faithful to its fires,” 
with scarcely an erasure of the pen, and perfect in 
the minutest particulars of orthography and punc- 
tuation. 
Another peculiarity, as it appears, was this, that 
when pressed for time, he frequently wrote most to 
his own satisfaction. Such was the case with his 
prefaces and dedications ; always delayed till the 
volume was near its completion, and then hurried 
by his printer, he generally sat down after tea, and 
* “The collections of seeds and botanical collections of this 
unfortunate and injured man, through the mismanagement of the 
Spanish court, have been lost to the gardens of Europe.—Among 
a few of his botanical discoveries which are preserved, are the 
magnificent Datura arborea, the beautiful Salvia formosa, and the 
fragrant Verbena triphylla, or, as it ought to have been called, 
citrea’; this last will be a monumentum ere perennius with 
those who shall ever know his history.”—J. E. 8. 
' V. triphylla, now Lippia citriodora. Kunth 
