64 Mr. Parkes's Hutory of 



The second volume which extends only to 382 pages, closets 

 with the number for December, 1708. 



This work was either edited by James Petiver, the eminent 

 writer on botany and other subjects of natural history before- 

 mentioned, or he was a great contributor thereto. It is now, 

 I believe, scarce ; I know of no copy except the one from 

 which I have transcribed the above, and that is in the library 

 of the late Sir Joseph Banks. A third volume was advertised 

 to be published, but I cannot tell whether it was ever printed 

 or not. 



It would be culpable if I were not to say something of the 

 extraordinary editor of this work. The following, however, 

 must suffice. 



James Petiver who was originally an obscure apothecary in 

 Aldersgate-street, became so eminent by his industry in botani- 

 cal pursuits, as to be the early and chosen friend of Sir Hans 

 Sloane, who was one of the pall-bearers at his funeral. A 

 newly discovered plant was also named after him, and I find, 

 on consulting Dr. Thomson's history of the Royal Society, that 

 he was elected a fellow thereof, under the designation of apo- 

 thecary to the Charter-House, on the 27th November, 1695. 

 This great naturalist was in the habit of engaging captains and 

 surgeons of ships to bring home specimens for him, and he 

 directed their choice and enabled them to judge in some measure 

 of proper objects, by distributing printed directions among 

 them, with folio books of waste paper, to contain the specimens 

 they might collect for him. Mr. Millan the bookseller, who 

 about the year 1760 came into possession of the remaining 

 copies of his works in folio, used to bind up one of these 

 original instructions, printed upon coarse paper, with each set. 

 It runs thus : " James Petiver his Book, for a collection of 

 whatever trees, shrubs, herbs, grasses, rushes, ferns, mosses, sea 

 or river-weeds, &c., you shall find." Then follow " Directions 

 for the gathering of Plants," which are very circumstantial and 

 curious, and each is signed with his name. By these means 

 , he collected so valuable a museum that Sir Hans Sloane a little 

 time before his death ofl'ered him four thousand pounds for it, 



