6 The Rev. Dr. Hincks on the Flora of Ireland. 



ultra." The work was dedicated to Primate Boulter. Threl- 

 keld was an Englishman, who settled in Dublin as a physician 

 and dissenting minister. In his preface he speaks of having 

 devoted attention to botanical studies in England as well as 

 since he came to Ireland, and particularly mentions his ha- 

 ving been in danger in 1707 (twenty years before the publica- 

 tion of this work) in the neighbourhood of Tynemouth Castle, 

 from having been observed clambering on rocks instead of 

 keeping the high road. He expressly says too, that he col- 

 lected plants for twelve years, marking the place where they 

 grew, and preserving them in a Hortus siccus, whereas the 

 author of the article Threlkeldia in Rees's Cyclopaedia 

 (did Sir J. E. Smith continue his contributions so long ?) 

 says, " that this catalogue was founded on the papers of Dr. 

 Thos. Molyneux, or the communications of other people," and 

 seems to question the propriety of Mr. Brown 5 s notice of him. 

 Rank in science he neither claimed himself, nor have others 

 done it for him ; but so far is the preceding charge from being 

 just, that Dr. Molyneux^s contributions, having come too late 

 to be incorporated with the work, were printed as an Appen- 

 dix, and he appears to have expressly noticed every plant that 

 was inserted in his catalogue on the authority of others. 

 Threlkeld speaks of his work as a pocket-book, a small treatise, 

 an abridgement, by which he hopes to stir up others to con- 

 tribute their quota " to wipe off the ugly character Pompo- 

 nius Mela has fixed on the Irish inhabitants, cultores ejus in- 

 conditos esse, et omnium virtutum ignaros magis quam alias 

 gentesP Yet he himself in the same preface gives a fair ex- 

 cuse for the neglect of this branch of learning, when he ob- 

 serves, " that the wars and commotions have laid an embargo 

 upon the pens of the learned, or discord among the petty 

 subaltern princes has rendered perambulation perilous, least 

 they should be treated as spies," when he mentions his own 

 danger at Tynemouth in 1707. In the days of Threlkeld bo- 

 tany was little more than a branch of medicine, and in this 

 light he chiefly regarded it. To detail the virtues of plants 

 was his grand object, and he satisfies himself with the names 

 by which they could be found in the works of Gerard, Caspar 

 Bauhin and Ray, who appear to have been his authorities, 

 though he sometimes expresses himself peevishly of the 

 changes made by the last, which in his eyes were not improve- 

 ments. To their Latin name he adds the English one and 

 the Irish one, when he could attain it. These " Irish names," 

 he says, " I copied from a manuscript which has great author- 

 ity with me, and seems to have been written sometime be- 

 fore the civil wars in 1641, and probably by that Reverend 



