V 



INTRODUCTION. v 



Natural Hiflory of which I have treated. The choice I 

 know, though it may meet with the warmeft concurrence 

 from one fet of readers, will not perhaps be equally agree- 

 able to the tafte of others. This I am heartily forry for. 

 My endeavour and wifli is to pleafe them all, if it were pof- 

 fible, as it is not. 



The firft fubject I treat of is trees, fhrubs, or plants ; and 

 in the Selecting of them I have preferred thofe which, ha- 

 ving once been confidered as fubjectsof confequence by the 

 ancients, and treated largely of by them, are now come, from 

 want of the advantage of drawing, lapfe of time, change 

 of climate, alteration of manners, or accident befallen the 

 inhabitants of a country, to be of doubtful exiflence and 

 uncertain defcription ; the afcertaining of many of thefe is 

 neceflary to the underftanding the clallics. 



It is well known to every one the lead verfant in this part 

 of Natural Hiilory, what a prodigious revolution has happen- 

 ed in the ufe of drugs, dyes, and gums, fince the time of 

 Galen, by the introduction of thofe Herculean medicines 

 drawn from minerals. The difcovery of the new world, 

 befides, has given us vegetable medicines nearly as active 

 and decilxve as thofe of minerals themfelves. Many found 

 in the new world grow equally in the old, from which 

 much confufion has arifen in the hiflory of each, that will 

 become inextricable in a few generations, unlefs attended 

 to by regular botanifts, afliiled by attentive and patient 

 draughts-men ignorant of fyflem, or at leafl not flaves to 

 it, who fet down upon paper what with their eyes they fee 

 does exift, without ainufmg themfelves with imagining, ac- 

 cording to rules they have themfelves made, what it regular- 



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