11 



part of my plan, to refuse a full and heaped 

 measure of justice to the aids I had received, 

 and to all who were endeavouring either to im- 

 prove their age, or to adorn it, whether they 

 happened to be my colleagues or not. I never 

 sought to throw a slur upon any one of them, 

 nor to check any man, for a moment, in his 

 career, by any jealousy or any policy. It 

 never has been, it is not, and I hope it never 

 will be, any part of my plan so to do. 



In the year 1792, Dr. Smith gave lectures in 

 London on botany and zoology, which I attended ; 

 those lectures were professedly nothing more 

 nor less than a plain exposition of the system 

 of Linnaeus, or the simple natural history of 

 plants and animals, merely as it rests upon the 

 characters of their external form. 



The character of Dr. Smith is too well and 

 generally established to require any encomium 

 from me. I have always professed the highest 

 respect both for his professional talents, and his 

 private character; for I am sufficiently ac- 

 quainted with him to know and to admire the 

 benevolence and excellence of his disposition. 

 I hope I shall not give him the slightest offence, 

 nor throw any doubt upon his abilities, by stat- 

 ing, in support of my own humble pretensions, 

 my belief, that he is called upon, for the first 

 time, to explain the philosophy of the animal 

 economy, to which pursuit he may perhaps re- 



