Xit PREFACE. 
quifite In a biographer, fuch as diligence and 
accuracy in inveftigating the difcoveries of 
his authors, and impartiahty in charadleriz- 
ing them, and in affigning to each his due 
degree of merit. To thefe perfonal requifites 
muft be added, the adventitious circum- 
ftances of a fituation favourable to his re- 
fearches, not only from manufcripts, and 
large libraries, but from a(£tual intercourfe 
with the learned. 
Fully fenfible in this view of the little 
claim I have to the charafter and advan- 
tages here fpoken of, it becomes neceflFary, 
to avoid the cenfure of temerity, that I 
ihould premife fome account of the original 
occaiion of this attempt, 
The attention I had given to Englifli Bo-- 
tany in my younger days, had prompted me, 
at one time, to plan a Flora of the plants 
of this kingdom, on an extenfive fcale ; 
including, befides the medical and oecono- 
mical hiftory of each, a Finaxy in which 
it was my defign to have diftinguifhed, as 
far as I was able, the firft difcoverer of each 
fpecies, both among foreign writers and 
thofe of our own kingdom ; and to have 
arranged 
