CIVIL AND NATURAL. XXVU 



3. We now come to Botany, the loveliest and mo^t 

 topious division in the history of nature ; and all dis- 

 putes on the comparative merit of systems being at 

 length, I hope, condemned to one perpetual night of 

 undisturbed slumber, we cannot employ our leisure more 

 delightfully than in describing ail new Asiatic plants 

 in the Li nn<zan style and method, or in correcting the 

 descriptions of those already known, but of which dry 

 specimens only, or drawings, can have been seen by 

 most European botanists. In this part of natural his- 

 tory we have an ample field yet unexplored ; for, tho' 

 many plants of Arabia have been made known by Gar- 

 das, Prosper Alpnus, and Forskoel\ of Persia, by Gar- 

 cm ; oiTartary, by Gmelin and Pallas ; of China and 

 Japan, by Kcempfer, Osbeck. and Thunberg ; of India, by 

 Rheede and Rumphius, the two Buniu2?is, and the much 

 lamented Koenig, yet none of those naturalists were 

 deeply versed in the literature of the several countries 

 from which their vegetable treasures had been pro- 

 cured ; and the numerous works in Sanscrit on medi- 

 cal substances, and chiefly on plants, have never been 

 inspected, or never at least understood, by any Euro- 

 pean attached to the study of nature. Until the gar- 

 den of the India Company shall be fully stored (as it 

 will be, no doubt, in due time) with Arabian, Persian^ 

 and Chinese plants, we may well be satisfied with exa- 

 mining the native flowers of our own provinces ; but 

 unless we can discover the Sanscrit names of all cele- 

 brated vegetables, we shall neither comprehend the al- 

 lusions which Indian Poets perpetually make to them, 



nor 



