292' CHAPTER 22. 
threw the whole into his own hands. He 
fays, he had purchafed 800 figures, which 
Johnson had caufed to be engraved, with 
which the work was to have been embel- 
liflied. Why they did not appear, no caufe 
is affigned 1 nor do I find any further no- 
tices of them. Dr. Merret, though un- 
queftionably a man of learning, tafte, and 
confiderable information in natural hiftory, 
feems to have engaged in it too late in life, 
to admit of his making that proficiency, 
which the defign required. Add to this, 
that being fixed in Londoriy and clofely en- 
gaged in the pradlice of his profeflion, he 
was rendered incapable of inveftigating 
plants, in the difl:ant parts of the kingdom. 
He however engaged Thomas Willi sel to 
travel for him ^ and he tells us, that Wil- 
LisEL was employed by him for five fuc- 
ceflive fummers. His fon, ChriJlopher'M.'E.R" 
RET, alfo made excurfions for the fame 
purpofe ; and Mr. Tauldon Goodyer fur- 
nifiied him with the manufcripts of his 
grandfather. By thefe afliftances Dr. Mer- 
ret procured a large number of Englijk 
plants, and a knowledge of the Loci Natales, 
Never- 
