154 CHAPTER 39. 
to whofe botanical fame he gave an emi- 
nence it had not experienced from the time 
of Ray. It was no mean facrificc to re- 
linquifh his country, his friends, his con- 
nexions, and his profpedls from a profef- 
fion, which is, at leaft fometimes, lucrative^ 
that he might devote himfelf to the culture 
of fcience, in a foreign land, where the ex- 
tent of his views was moft probably bound- 
ed by the precarious hope of a profefTorfhip 
alone. 
John Jacob Dillenius * was born at 
"Darmjladt^ in Germany^ in the year 168'^, 
It appears that he had his education, prin- 
cipally at the univerfity of Giejfen, a city of 
Upper Hejfe ^ and where, probably, his fa- 
mily had confiderable intereft and con- 
nexions -y fmce I find tv^o of his contempo- 
raries of the fame name, of whom, one was 
* There is a letter extant, written by Dillenius, iii 
lyay, in which he tells his correfpondent, " I had once 
*' a mind to have fpelled my name Dill en, it being 
eafier to pronounce ; and to make my brother do the 
fame : for my great grandfather fpelled it fo, and my 
" great great grandfather Dill : but, confidering that 
" my name and my father's had been fo often printed 
Dillenius, I have left it as it is," 
a profeflar 
