l6S MEMOIRS QF 



to explore it's arcana. This poem, there- 

 fore, involved two claffes of readers by 

 whom it would probably be purchafed. 

 Every fkilful Botanift, every mere Tyro in 

 the fcience, would wifh to poflefs it for 

 the fake of the notes, though infenfible, 

 perhaps, as the verieft ruftic, to the charms 

 of poetry ; while every reader, awakened 

 to them, muft be ambitious to fee fuch a 

 conftellation of poetic ftars in his library ; 

 all that gave immortality to Ovid's fame, 

 without the flighteft imitation of his man- 

 ner, the leaft debt to his ideas; fince, 

 though Dr. Darwin often retells that poet's 

 ftories, it is always ^vith new imagery and 

 heightened intereft. 



Certainly it was by an inverfion of all 

 cuftom that Dr. Darwin published the fe- 

 cond part of his poem firft. The reafon 

 given for fo extraordinary a manoeuvre in 

 that advertifement which led the younger 

 fitter before the elder on the field of pub- 

 lic 



