4 The Rey. Dr. Hincks on the Flora of Ireland. 
tany were previous to Mr. Mackay’s settlement in Ireland, 
and were in a great degree a cause of that settlement, to whom 
I shall afterwards refer. I am willing to take it in that exten- 
sive sense, and trust I shall make it appear that Mr. Mackay 
found much done by them before he saw Ireland. But does 
not Mr. Mackay in his preface tell us of Molyneux’s cata- 
logue of rare plants appended to Threlkeld? and previously 
of Heaton, and Llhwyd and Sherard? Are not some of our 
rarest plants recorded by Ray ? Does not he tell us of Smith’s 
Cork and Kerry ? of Wade’s Flora Dublinensis and Plantee 
Rariores? Does he not refer toa catalogue of the plants of the 
county Cork by Jas. Drummond? ‘These are mentioned by 
Mr. Mackay, but considered by his reviewer as absolutely 
nothing. 
Having thus stated the charge brought, that the literary 
men of Ireland had been peculiarly negligent of her botanical 
treasures, I shall endeavour to show that it is in great mea- 
sure not well-founded. It proceeds on the supposition that 
because a local Flora had not been published, therefore “the 
botany of Ireland was as much unknown as that of an island 
in the Pacific.” Now we have seen that works were published 
early in the 18th century, and that references are made to bo- 
tanists in the 17th century: may we not then look to the com- 
parative state of botany elsewhere? It is well known that for 
a long period this science was cultivated merely as “ the hum- 
ble but engaging handmaid of surgery and medicine.” All 
the catalogues had a reference to this, except those of timber 
trees and articles of food. It was not till the latter end of the ~ 
17th century, that botany began to make progress as a sci- 
ence, and notwithstanding the valuable labours of Ray and 
Tournefort, it was not till the establishment of the Linnzan 
System, about the middle of the 18th century, that there was 
any work “to enable a botanist by short determinate charac- 
ters to discover the name of an unknown plant.” It is use- 
less then to lament that there was no Jrish work of this kind, 
when none existed anywhere. Without urging our ignorance 
of what may be concealed in Irish MSS; without alleging 
the change that had so recently taken place in Ireland by the 
cutting down of woods and the formation of bogs; without 
dwelling on its wretched internal state, so adverse to all sci- 
entific inquiries ; it is enough to state that there was a like ig- 
norance of plants in other countries, and that the idea of di- 
stinct Floras as guides to students had not been conceived. 
The earliest works in Ireland, as in England, were chiefly in- 
tended to guide the medical practitioner, “ the culler of sim- 
ples,” where to find what he wanted. It was not till1762, when 
