LIFE OF MUNGO PARK. 
vii 
History, which has perhaps, ever yet been formed ; and 
which, tlirough the liberality of its possessor, has contri- 
buted in a greater degree to the accommodation of scien- 
tific men, and the general advancement of science than 
many public establishments. Such leisure hours as Mr. 
Dickson could command from his business, he devoted to 
an assiduous attendance in this library or to the perusal of 
scientific books obtained from thence. In process of time 
he acquired great knowledge and became eminent among 
the English Botanists ; and is now known in Europe 
among the proficients in that science as one of its most 
successful cultivators, and the author of some distinguished 
Works. At an advanced period of life he is still active in 
business, and continues to pursue his botanical studies 
with unabated ardour and assiduity.* 
Such an instance of successful industry united with a 
taste for intellectual pursuits, deserves to be recorded ; 
not only on account of its relation to the subject of 
this narrative, but because, it illustrates in a very striking 
and pleasing manner, the advantages of education in 
the lower classes of life. The attention of the Scottish 
farmers and peasantry to the early instruction of their 
* Mr. Dickson is a Fellow of the Linnaean Society, of which he was one of 
the original founders : and also Fellow and Vice President of the Horticultural 
Society. Several communications from him appear in different volumes of the 
Linnaean Transactions ; but he is principally known among Botanists by a work 
entitled, " Fasciculi Quatuor Plantarum Cryptogamicarum Britanniae." Land. 
1785-93 ; in which he has described upwards of four hundred plants not before 
noticed. He has the merit of having directed the attention of the Botanists of 
this country to one of the most abstruse and difficult parts of that science ; to 
the advancement of which he has himself very greatly contributed. 
