SECOND EDITION. XVii 



on the subject of Dr. Anderson's Patent for a 

 forcing-house, the Doctor well knows, that motives 

 of delicacy, more creditable to myself, perhaps, 

 than pleasing or candid towards him, made me 

 resolutely decline to do what, in any other cir- 

 cumstances, would have been but a common act 

 of justice and friendship. As to my having stood 

 forward to attest^ 8^c. 1 really know not in what 

 part of my book, or where else, Mr. Knight can 

 find that I have so done. 



As to Mr. Knight's account of his Visit to 

 Kensington Gardens, and his opinions of the 

 Trees under experiment there (evidently viewed 

 by him with an eye of prejudice), I shall content- 

 edly leave them to operate as they may : not 

 apprehending that 1 assume too much, when I say, 

 that in my humble opinion, a person who (for an 

 insidious purpose) can " offset total ignorance^^ 

 [these are his own words] on a subject which he 

 at the same time professes fully to understand, has 

 little claim to notice either in answer or explana- 

 tion.* 



* Mr. Knight's remark, of its being «' more certain that I was 

 paid for an important discovery, than that I made one," is, per- 

 haps, more entitled to praise for its ingenuity, than for its 

 civiHty towards the Noble Peers and Honourable Members of 

 Parliament on. whose examination and report to His Majesty 

 the reward was ordered to be granted (see p. 410 of this 

 volume) ; and who were selected, as being the most competent 



a 



