PREFACE. 



VII 



Added to the inaccuracy of the plates now extant, another caufe con- 

 tributes no fmall matter to the prefent confufion, that is, the deficiency ia 

 number; Linnaeus having allowed us but ten mints, whereas our im- 

 mortal Ray, after having defcribed no lefs than fixteen, with all that 

 pleafant candour fo peculiar to him, finifhes the fubjecl: with this re- 

 mark — " Mentharum valde ferax eft Anglia noftra, nam prater /pedes de novo 

 " hie additas, queituor alia peculiaribus nominibus recenfentur a Merretto 

 " in Fin. et plures prater has turn a D. Buddle, turn a D. Rand obfervata 

 " funt. Sed cum de iis nobis nondum fatis conftet, ulteriori eas obfervationi 

 " relinquere necejfe habuimus." This is a fufficient proof that Ray 

 thought the field of Englifh mints far from being exhaufted. 



Xournefort feems to have found all Ray's plants in France, and 

 defcribes them with little or no variation. 



Sir John Hill, in his B. H. has only copied Ray, and thrown no 

 new light on the fubjecl. Our late eminent Englifh botanift, Mr. 

 Hudson, whofe lofs will be long regretted, appears to have been well 

 acquainted with all Ray's plants; and, obferving that Linnjeus had to- 

 tally unnoticed many of them, and unwilling to have them left in ob- 

 fcurity, has, in his fecond edition, introduced them as varieties, fome in 

 one place, and fome in another. The attempt was certainly laudable, but 

 it was not fuccefsful, having tended only to increafe the entanglement. 



Upon the whole, then, it is very obvious to all who are any ways con- 

 verfant with the fubjecl, that an entire new fet of good plates of the mints 

 is much wanted ; nor, indeed, can any frefh illuftration of them be given 



without ; 



