The history of BOTANY. 
13 
names, Is plainly an error. Pliny, who was too much obliged to Dio- 
scoRiDES, has no where named that author : for the ancients were lefs brutal 
than the moderns upon this occafion. Our authors when they plunder 
another, attempt alfo to deftroy his charadler, that none may fee their ori- 
ginal : they only ftudy’d to conceal the obligation : a pradice printing has 
now made impoflible. We owe Dioscorides this juflice : for tho’ he 
was very far inferior to Theophrastus, he yet deferves a higher rank 
than Pliny. It may be proved that he was really the earlier; tho’ the 
fame evidence will fliew, that he preceded the other but a little in point of 
time. One inftance may ferve as a thoufand. Where Pliny names the 
PlAiMATiTE and ScHisTus, he tranflates the paflage verbally, tho’, per- 
haps, not happily, from the writings of Dioscorides : he takes from this 
author exadly not only the defcription of thofe minerals, but their vir- 
tues ; and even the peculiar fluid wherein to mix them up for ufe : th’s is 
woman’s milk. When Pliny has given this account, he adds thefe re- 
markable words : This is the opinion of thofe who have wrote lated on 
the fubjed. We fee, by comparing the two authors, that it is diflindly 
and exadly the opinion of Dioscorides, and plainly he was one of the 
late writers whom Pliny quotes, tho’ he docs not add Ins name. We 
know Pliny wrote under Vespasian, and this may fix the time of Di- 
oscoRiDEs: he, being a little earlier, inufl have written about three hun- 
dred and feventy years after Theophrastus. 
Tracing the Hiftory of Botany, we thus fnd a period of near four 
hundred years in which no advance whatfoever had been made in the fei- 
ence : for Dioscorides fays nothing of the philofophy of Plants which 
was not known to Theophrastus. Every thing appears to have been 
darknefs before that \Yriter ; and all negled and indolence during fo many 
ages after him. The Science of Botany began with him, and in a man- 
ner ended where it began. The fucceeding Greeks appear not to have re- 
garded his difeoveries, or even to have preferved with any accuracy, the 
very names by which he and their other predeceffors called the feveral ob- 
jeds. In this long period between Theophrastus and Diosco n ides, 
only one hundred Plants were added to the Bores of knowledge ; and thefe, 
as will appear by that lad; author, were but ill known, and carelefsly diflin- 
guidied. 
Dioscorides found Botany little regarded, the philofophic knowledge 
of earlier times negleded, and the ufes of a few knov/n Plants only Bodi- 
ed, He conformed to the cudom .of an indolent age, whole attention he 
might, if he had picafed, have extended to this other path ; and what he 
has 
