DR. DARWIN. 3/7 



It fcems to bear that fpecks and degree of 

 inferiority to the three former Cantos, as 

 the Loves of the Plants, confidered as an 

 whole, bears to the fublimer firft part, the 

 Economy of Vegetation ; where we find 

 imperfonifed each various elementary pro- 

 perty of Creation, as a race of miniftrant 

 Beings, endowed with fcientific intelli- 

 gence and benevolent powers. They rife 

 before us, the Handmaids of Nature, or- 

 dained to watch over all her operations 

 and productions, on earth and beneath it ; 

 in air and in ocean ; as Nature herfelf ap- 

 pears in the femblarice of the Goddefs of 

 Botany. 



Perhaps it would have been better if her 

 proper and general name, Nature, had been 

 afligned to her in the Economy of Vege- 

 tation, and the botanic title been referved 

 exclufively for the Mufe ia the Second Part, 

 who records the transformations and the 

 Jovs of the Plants *nd 'Flowers. In that 



cafe, 



