The history of BOTANY. 
31 
of Plants. He has colIed:ed boldly, and tranfcribed hadi!y, upon this 
fubjed : fomething of this he owns ^ but more is true. Maranta, and 
Adam Lonicerus, are allb to be added to the Botanids of this great pe- 
riod ; the firll knew Plants well, and has explained happily fome of the 
obfcure ones of the ancients; the other was too much obliged to Tra- 
gus. 
Botany was become fo refpeded, and fo fafliionable, at this happy 
period, that fome began to imitate thofe vencr :ble Greeks who undertook 
the longed voyages, in fearch of Plants ; a.nd others, whom t’ncir peculiar 
occafions called abroad, made this alfo a part of their employment. The 
new world, America, was ddcovered ; and Garcias, and the two 
Acostas, Hernandes, and Monardes, Boxtius, Piso, and Marc- 
grave, with many more, brought from thence, and from the other re- 
mote quarters of the earth, a multitude of new Plants. The (lores in- 
creafed, new fpecies were known, and the lludy was more cultivated : but 
yet figures, defcriptions, hiflories cf the peculiar Plants, were all ; and no- 
thing was attempted in the road of Science. 
Daleschamp appeared about the fame time with thefe, and iludied 
the Vegetables of France carefully. He undertook a General Hidory of 
Plants; and Molin^us affiding, there appeared, after fome years, that 
great work the Historia Lugdunensis : valuable, tho’ too full of errors. 
Tabernamontanus was nearly of the fame time; a curious obferver 
of the forms of Plants, and of their virtues : but he took fo much from 
others, that it is hard at this time to fay what was his own. Dodon^tus 
had written alfo jud before this period, adding fome Plants to the already 
increafed number ; a writer much obliged to others, but fair in owning it : 
and from a tranflation of his works, by Doctor Priest, our Gerard 
put together his Englilli Herbal. In this, however much he borrowed, 
he added fourteen Plants to the Botanic Catalogue. 
Gamer ari us was another of the Botanids of this period, happy in 
his intimacies and conncdlions with eminent perfons, who dudied the fame 
fubjedbs. He was attentive alfo himfe’f to the living Plants ; and the world 
would have been much indebted to him, if all he wrote, and all he coi- 
leded, had been publi bed. Sarracen, after him, gave new lights into 
many parts of Dioscorides ; a talk the eafier, becaufe more Plants were 
known : but his error, like that of all his predecedbrs, is the attempting 
too hardily to reconcile the defcriptions of thofe old Greeks to the Plants 
of our Europe. Bellonius mud be added to the long lid of Botanids 
of the period whereof we now write; an author who feems only to have 
I wanted 
