290 Biographical Account of 



emoluments which are juftly due to profeflional fupcriority; 

 and in which they mull be reduced to an unworthy and de- 

 grading dependence upon a few party-leaders ! 



Mr. Pulteney was of a timid and cautious difpofition ; and, 

 though his mind was by no means formed for fhackles, his 

 temper w^as not firm enough to enable him effeAually to aflert 

 his freedom. It would be an unpleafant taflc to dwell upon 

 the ftiare he had in thofe " fcorns which patient merit of the 

 unworthy takes ;" or of the flruggle he maintained with nar- 

 row circumftances, which obliged him to contraft habits of 

 rigid ceconomy, rendered more neceffary by the paffion for 

 buying books, to which he was content to facrifice every 

 other inclination. Science was, indeed, his great refource 

 under the difcouragements of his fituation, and it eventually 

 proved the means of raifing him from obfcurity. To his 

 private friends he was known as one who had inqyired largely 

 and thought freely on a variety of topics. To the public he 

 firft appeared as a votary of the pleafing ftudy of botany. He 

 became a correfpondent of the Gentleman's Magazine at an 

 early period ; and communicated to it, anonymoufly, a feries 

 of valuable letters concerning the poifonous plants of this 

 country, and a diflertalion on Fungi, contained in the xxvtli 

 volume of that mifcellany. To the fame publication he fent, 

 in 1757, a tranflation of a curious paper in the TJpfal Amcc- 

 nilafes Academic<^ on " the Sleep of Plants." This fubjeft 

 he purfued more at large in a paper inferted in the 1th 

 volume of the Philofophical Tranfa6lions, for 1758, entitled 

 *' Obfervations on the Sleep of Plants, with an Enumeration 

 of feveral Plants which are fubjeft to that Law." He had 

 before appeared among the contributors to the Philofophical 

 Tranfadions by a " Catalogue of the rare Plants of Leicefter- 

 {liire, with Botanical and Medical Obfervations;" vol. xlix. 

 for 1756. This paper he gave to Mr. Nichols, in an im- 

 proved ftate, in 1795, who has inferted it in the firft volimie 

 of his hiftory of that county. In 1758 he printed, in the 

 Gentleman's Magazine, a tranflation from the fame Amoe- 

 nitates, of the inftruAive paper entitled " Pan Suecus," giving 

 a catalogue of plants which, from experiment, were found to 

 be either chofen or rejeded as food by the diiferent fpecies of 

 domeftic quadrupeds. This he adapted more particularly to 

 Englifti readers by referring to Englifti authors; and he 

 fubjoined to it feme notes and obfervations. Its utility caufed 

 him afterwards to annex it, in a more enlarged form, to his 

 *' View of the Writings of Linnaeus." 



He diftinguiftied himfclf in a manner more purely profef- 

 fional by a paper publiflied in the Philofophical Tranfattions, 



vol. lii. 



