210 CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY. , \July, 



with this adage, Canis festinans ccbcos parit catulos, or as they 

 say in Scotland, ' the more haste the less speed/ and in England, 

 ' the most haste the worst speed.' " 



This great work of Parkinson's justifies the title, " England's 

 chiefest herbarist," bestowed on our author by the greatest of his 

 panegyrists. Sir Theod. de Mayerne, was not ill applied. Dr. 

 Pulteney's opinion is ours, and we are pleased to have so excel- 

 lent an authority on our side (see p. 144, vol. i.) : — " It is manifest, 

 even from a cursory view of it [the ' Theatrum Botanicum], that it 

 is a work of much more originality than that of Gerard, and it 

 contains abundantly more matter than the last edition of that 

 author, with all Johnson's augmentations." Again, in p. 148, 

 the same ingenious historian wrote, " In this view, if I am not 

 mistaken, he will appear more of an original author than Gerard 

 or Johnson, independent of the advantages he might derive from 

 being posterior to them. His Theatre was carried on through 

 a long series of years, and he profited by the works of some late 

 authors, which, though equally in Johnson's power, he had neg- 

 lected to use. Parkinson's descriptions, in many instances, ap- 

 pear to be new. He is more particular in pointing out the places 

 of growth, etc." 



The writer of these brief notes on the labours of our early 

 English botanists has much pleasure in indorsing the favourable 

 estimate of Parkinson, above given by the amiable author of the 

 ( Progress of Botany in England ;' and he further presumes to 

 add, that he has perused no work, compiled either previously or 

 contemporaneously with the ' Theatrum Botanicum,' which con- 

 tains so much information about plants, so much sound learning 

 and judicious criticism. 



Its author did not profess scholarship ; he very modestly told 

 his readers that he was in the humblest rank of the honourable 

 profession to which he belonged; yet no previous author had 

 collected the opinions of the learned in all ages on plants so in- 

 dustriously and learnedly as Mr. Parkinson. 



His work contains descriptions of nearly 3800 plants, or about 

 a thousand more than are to be found in Johnson's improved and 

 amplified edition of Gerard, according to Dr. Pulteney (p. 150, 

 vol. i.), and as it has been, almost in every case, quoted by Ray, 

 it has been " raised to classical eminence in English Botany," 

 an eminence which it must retain as long as the works of the 

 most renowned of British botanists are consulted. 



