S9^ Biographical Account of 



Of his youthful catalogues above mentioned I have fcen 

 and examined fevcral, with defcriptions and coloured draw- 

 ings of the mod remarkable plants, in very fmall books. They 

 were drawn up at different times, and, like the different edi- 

 tions of a book, were progreffively improved and enlarged as 

 his exj'erience in botany and his knowledge of the plants in 

 the neighbourhood were improved and enlarged. Some of 

 them were, I believe, made as early as when he was only 

 eight or nine years of age; and I particularly remarked that 

 of the Campanula patula, which, as we have feen, iiad not 

 been many years known to be an indigenous plant of this 

 ifland, and which he himfelf had difcovered m and near 

 Buddon Wood in the year 1742, that is, when he was only 

 twelve years old : there were repeated coloured drawings in 

 the moft recent of them ; done, indeed, in fuch a ilyle of me- 

 diocrity as might be expected from a boy of that a^e, but af- 

 fording a very good iikenefs of the plant which they were in- 

 tended to reprefent. 



This tafte, once implanted in his mind, grew and flou- 

 riflied, and was ultimately produiStive of extraordinary im- 

 provement in the fame way. Imitation gave a turn to his 

 purfuits; and excellent abilities, united with indefatigable 

 diligence, led him on to that perfection in both the fcien- 

 tifical and pratlical knowledge of botany, a ftudv^at that 

 time but rarely cultivated, to which he afterwardslattained, 

 and which at lengih raifed him high in the eftimation, and 

 drew to him the frequent correfpondence, of the moll emi- 

 nent botanifts of the time. 



He was earlv in the habit of examining plants in their 

 feveral native places of growth, of being moll exa6l in the 

 inveftigation of them, and in noting their minuteft differ- 

 there, invariably, for about twenty years ; where ten or a dozen plants are 

 annually to be found, in the month oF Julv, ex.iiSlIy about the lanic 

 f pot ; from whence, fonie years ago, I colkfted (teds, which 1 lowed in 

 Tny garden, of v, hich this beaiJtiful plant forms a con fide table ornament 

 every vcar from the beginning of July to the la-.ter end of Oftober. I 

 bivt alfo found it in the road ftoin i>irmingham to Sutton Coldheld; and 

 about a mile from Stourbridge, in Worccfterfliire, where, befides th« 

 common pnrple fort, I faw one or two plants of a beautiful Inowy white. 

 This plant is not only rarely to be met with ; but I never found it grow- 

 ing pleniituHv but in Buddon Wood. In general, it is fcen very thinly 

 fcattertd wicbin a Imall circumlcribtd ipoc. 



It is to be obfcrvcd that Buddon Wood is not a great way from Hi- 

 thern, where he firft imbibed a tafte for botany; or from Loughborough, 

 <T'here he fcrved his apprenticcfhip ; and that none of thefe places are far 

 remote from Charley Fcrcll, where many of the rare plants were collcdled; 

 and that at I.eicefter he wa* for feveral years fettled as an apothecary, 

 where he remained till his thirty-fecond year ; all which pLces were the 

 cluef fcenes of his early or more mature lurborijatiins, and furnifhcd 

 plants for his catalogue. cnces 



