( 28i ) 
CHAP. Zl. 
Pcetical hotanifts — Cowley — Account of his poems 
cn plants — Not deeply verjed in the botany of 
his time — Intimate knowledge of natural hiflory 
nccejjary to acccmplifh " the poet of natunJ'^ 
Cowley, 
IN all times, from Virgil and mi- 
Lius Macer of the Auguftan age, 
from the fpurious Macer, and Strabus 
the monk of St. Gall, in the twelfth cen- 
tury, to modern times, the beauties of 
flowers, and the virtues of plants, have been 
celebrated in verfe. Marcus N^vianus, 
firft a phyfician, and then a prieft, of FlaJi- 
dersy fung the qualities of plants in his 
Poemation'' of 1563; and Thuanus, the 
great hiftorian, amufed himfelf with praifing 
the violet and the lily in metre. In our own 
country, in 1723, George Knowles de~ 
fcribed 400 plants of the Materia Medica^ 
in Latin verfe, and didadlically applied thera 
to their ufcs in medicine. 
But to proceed : ThziEngland md France, 
in 
