190 CHAPTER 15. 
folio volumes, at the expence of 40,000 
florins, defrayed by F. L. a Graffenreid, 
was the principal performance on the con- 
tinent, and that indeed was invaluable. It 
is a monument of learning and induftry, of 
which few examples can be expe£ted in any 
one age. That which Gesner performed 
for zoology, Jobn Bauhine effedled in 
botany. It is, in reality, a repofitory of all 
that was valuable in the ancients, in his 
immediate predecelTors, and in the difcove- 
ries of his own time, relating to the hiftory 
of vegetables, and is executed with that 
accuracy and critical judgment which can 
only be exhibited by fuperior talents. 
The obftacles to the improvement of 
botany were various. Europe had been in- 
volved in war, the perpetual enemy to free 
intercourfe among the learned ^ and to 
commerce, which is ever friendly to natural 
fcience. Simples were negledled in phyfic, 
for medicines drawn from chymiftry. Even 
alchymy yet employed the induftry of many 
in every nation of Europe. Botanical gar- 
dens, although feveral, both public and pri- 
vate, hadbeea eftablifhed, did not, however, 
flourifha 
