A VISIT TO ENGLAND 343 



hour. He was so impressed with his talents that he 

 urged him to reside at Oxford and share the profits 

 of his professorship with him. Dillenius frequently 

 visited Eltham in Kent, where Dr. J. Sherard (William 

 Sherard's brother) had a house and garden. We are not 

 told that Linnaeus ever accompanied him thither, but 

 several hints make me opine that he did so. William 

 Sherard's aim was the continuation of Bauhin's 

 4 Pinax.' i Such assistance as his,' Dillenius said to 

 J. Sherard, speaking of Linnaeus, l in the continuation 

 of Sherard's " Pinax " would be invaluable.' ' The 

 nature of this Pinax,' Pulteney too rashly takes for 

 granted, 'is too well-known to be explained/ Most 

 people do not know what a pinax is ; few dictionaries 

 or cyclopaedias even give the word < yea, I know it 

 but in two.' Pinax, or synopsis pinax, a picture of 

 the vegetable kingdom. 



1 It was undertaken by Sherard as a continuation of 

 Bauhin's " Pinax Theatri Botanici," and it afterwards 

 devolved on Dillenius to carry it forward in a similar 

 manner. No part of it, however, ever came to the 

 press ; but the whole MS., preserved in the Botanical 

 Library at Oxford, deserves to be considered as an in- 

 teresting monument of the scientific industry and 

 erudition of Sherard and his first professor.' 



' When I was at Oxford,' writes Linnaeus to Haller 

 from Hartecamp, April 1737, 'Dillenius was finishing 

 the " Phytopinax " of Sherard, of which he had then 



