J 
Ifagoge in Rent Herbariam. In this cata- 
logue there is not a iingle writer, from thg 
firfl to the fixteenth century, whofe bota- 
nical labours deferve the leaft attention. 
Without methodical arrangement, natural 
hiftbry feems a chaos; yet no attempt at a 
botanical fyftem appeared till the year 1583, 
when Caefalpinus, profefTor of Medicine at 
Padua, publifhed his book de Plantis, in 
which they were arranged according to their 
fruftification, or-manner of producing their 
feed. But this fyftem laid dormant almoft: 
a century after his death, when it was re- 
vived by Morifon, profefibr of Botany at 
Oxford, in his Hijloria Plantarum^ Oxonienjis, 
fol. 1680. To this fyftem fucceeded that 
of our excellent botanift Ray, many years 
a refident member of Trinity college, Cam- 
bridge. He formed his 3 1 claffes partly on 
the diftinctions obfervable in the fhape of 
the corolla, and partly on the fruit. He 
publifhed his Methodus Plantarum nova in 
1682; the firft volume of his Hijloria Plan- 
tarum (which you may fee in the Univerfity 
Library, in 3 huge folio volumes) was print- 
ed in 1686; and his Synopjis ftirpium Britan- 
nicarum, in 1690. The beft edition of this 
book is that publiflied by Dillenius in 1724. 
The 
