LINNiEUS. 351 



opportunity that you may be so good as to afford 

 me of serving you, I shall esteem an honour ; and 

 if at the same time you favour me with your advice, 

 and allow me to drink at the fountain of pure bo- 

 tanical science from your abundant stores, I shall 

 esteem it the highest honour, as well as gratification, 

 that I can enjoy. 



" Almost every one of your works is already in 

 my hands, and I trust I have thence greatly im- 

 proved my knowledge of botany. Mr Ellis informs 

 me of your being about printing a new edition of 

 your Systema Naturae and Genera Plantarum, both 

 which I have ordered to be sent me as soon as they 

 appear. From the riches and erudition of what you 

 have already published, your whole mind being de- 

 voted to this one pursuit, I am at no loss to anticipate 

 the still greater degree of information, elegance, and 

 perfection, of your future performances. Nothing, 

 indeed, more excites my wishes, as a certain source 

 of pleasure and improvement, than to be more deeply 

 conversant wdth your writings ; that I may not only 

 profit by your genius, but, at the same time, have 

 the information of the most eminent and approved 

 writers in botany always ready at hand. 



" I am disgusted with the coarse and malicious 

 style in which some carping and slanderous critics 

 have attacked these works of yours, the delight and 

 ornament of botanical science. But such men are 

 objects of pity rather than anger. Their blind in- 

 clination to find fault leads them so far into the 

 mazes of absurdity, that they censure what ought 

 to afford them nothing but instruction. Their fu- 

 tile reasonings, indeed, fall harmless to the ground, 

 like the dart of Priam from the shield of Pyrrhus. 



