Wat/on, 337 
tings, to bear honourable teftimony to his 
learning and abilities. 
Sir William Watson had learned to 
know plants by the lyftem and nomencla- 
ture of Ray, when trivial names were 
unknown ; and he was fo fingularly happy 
in a tenacious memory, as to be able to 
repeat, with wonderful promptitude, the 
long names which had been in ufe from 
the times of Bauhine, Gerard, and 
Parkinson j a tafk from which botanifts 
are relieved, by the introduction of the 
Linncean trivial epithets. He lived to fee 
the fyftem of his much-honoured country- 
man give way to that of the Swede^ which 
began to take place in E?tgland about this 
period ; and with which alfo he made him- 
felf acquainted. His knowledge of plants, 
and the hiftory of them in the various au- 
thors, was fo eminently extenfive, that his 
opinion was frequently appealed to as deci- 
live on the fubjed: ^ and by fonie of his in- 
timate friends he was ufually called The 
living Lexicon of Botany." Had it been 
the lot of Sir William Watson to have 
been devoted to Botanv as an official em- 
Vol. II. Z ployment ; 
