102 JOHN HILL 



Its first introduction was in his History of Plants (175 1), 

 but it was unsatisfactory since the Species Plantarum was not 

 published until 1753. Hill next explained it in I7S8S but it 

 was not until two years later that the first British Flora, arranged 

 on this system, appeared^ According to Pulteney^, Hill per- 

 formed this task " in a manner so unworthy of his abilities, that 

 his work can have no claim to the merit of having answered the 

 occasion : and thus the credit of the atchievement fell to the lot 

 of Mr William Hudson F.R.S." 



Mention has been made of Hill's Vegetable System^: a work 

 which consists of 26 folio volumes and was undertaken at the 

 suggestion of Lord Bute. It was commenced in 1759, and the 

 date of the last volume is 1775, the year of Hill's death. No 

 expense was spared in its production, the paper is of the best, 

 and there are 1600 plates : with regard to these the title-page 

 of the work states that they were designed and engraved by the 

 author, but it appears from other sources that they cost four 

 guineas each to engrave, and since it is stated on the auctioneer's 

 announcement of the sale of the copyright (1782), together with 

 some of the original drawings and the remaining sets, that the 

 engravings were made by the best masters under the immediate 

 supervision of the author, it must be concluded that Hill was 

 not the actual engraver although he may have made the original 

 drawings. Attention is drawn to this point, since it casts some 

 doubts as to whether Hill engraved those plates, signed by him, 

 illustrating some of his other works, for instance, The British 

 Herbal, and A Method of Producing Double Flowers from 

 Single^, of which some are very good indeed, and, if Hill were 

 the engraver, shew that he had considerable artistic and technical 

 ability. 



^ The Gardeners New Calendar... The System of Linnaeus also explained, London, 



1758. 



2 Flora Britanica sive Synopsis methodica stirpium Britanicarum post tertiam 

 editionem synopseos Raianae . . .nunc pritnum ad C. Linnaei methodum disposita, 

 London, 1760 (some copies are dated 1759). 



' Loc. cit. 



< The Vegetable System Or, the Internal Structure and The Life of Plants ; Their 

 Parts and Nourishment Explained; Their Classes, Orders, Genera, and Species, 

 Ascertained and Described... hondon, 1759 1775. 



" London, 1758. 



