P L U 
701 
P L U 
PLUCK'LEY, a parifh of England, in Kent: four 
miles fouth-weft from Charing. Population 616. 
PLU'DENTZ, a fmall town of the Auftrian Hates, in 
Tyrol, on the Ill. In the year 1533, it fullered greatly 
from an earthquake; and, in 1638, had the misfortune of 
being confumed by fire: feventy-two miles weft of Inns- 
pruck, and forty-four fouth-eaft of Conftance. 
PLU'DESCH, a town of Germany, in the county of 
Pludentz : fix miles north of Pludentz. 
PLUE (La), or Rainy Lake, a lake of Upper Canada, 
lying weft by north of Lake Superior, and eaft by fouth 
of the Lake of the Woods. Lat. 4.8. 50. N. Ion. 93. 40. 
PLUE (La), a river forming a communication between 
Lake La Plue and the Lake of the Woods. 
PLUG, f. [plugg, Swedilh ; plugghe, Teut.] A ftopple ; 
any thing driven hard into another body, to flop a hole. 
—Shutting the valve with the plug, draw down the fuck¬ 
er to the bottom. Boyle.— The fighting with a man’s 
own (hadow, confifts in the brandilhing of two fticks 
grafped in each hand, and loaded with plugs of lead at 
either end : this opens the cheft. Addifon. —In bottling 
wine, fill your mouth full of corks, together with a large 
plug of tobacco. Swift’s Dir. to the Butler. 
To PLUG, v. a. To ftop wdth a plug.—A tent plug¬ 
ging up the orifice, would make the matter recur to the 
part difpofed to receive it. Sharp's Surgery. 
PLU'KENET (Leonard), “ a learned, critical, and la¬ 
borious, botanift,” as Dr. Pulteney juftly denominates 
him, was the cotemporary and rival of Petiver, (fee 
that article;) and laboured, w'ith ftill more ardent, as 
well as exclufive, affiduity, to colleCt and delineate the 
vegetable productions of nature. His origin and native 
country, as well as the place of his education, are un¬ 
known. He has indicated 164a as the date of his birth ; 
and we know that he furvived the fixty-third year of his 
age, but there is no precife record of his deceafe. A 
handfome portrait of him, at the age of forty-eight, is pre¬ 
fixed to his Phylograpliia, with the title of DoCtor of 
Phyfic ; and bis arms: Ermine, a bend dexter engrailed, 
gules. It is not known where he took his degree. His 
name feems to betray a French extraction, Pius que net , 
and has been Latinized Plus quam nitidus , More-than- 
clean. He refided at Old Palace-yard, Weftminfter, 
where he appears to have had a fmall garden ; but as Dr. 
Pulteney fought in vain for his name in feveral lifts of 
the College of Phyficians, printed in the firft years of 
the 18th century, as well as in thofe of the Royal Society 
of the fame date, it ftiould feem that he was not then 
eminent, either as a medical pra&itioner or a natural phi- 
lofopher. His motto, an anagram of his name, Ut pene 
nullus Jic ardeo, well exprefles the zeal with which he 
devoted himfelf to his favourite ftudy ; while another 
motto in the fame page, over a burning candle, Aids 
inferviendo eonfumor, and a fubfequent one, to the fourth 
part of his work, Nil nifapreemia defunt, evince that his 
worldly recompence was not adequate to his wifhes or ex¬ 
pectations. Dr. Pulteney has difcovered that Plukenet 
had a fon, Richard, who was a ftudent at Cambridge in 
1696 ; and the Almagejlum contains fome verfes written 
by another fon, Robert, at Eton fchool; which is all we 
know of his family or connections. He publifhed his 
early works at his own expenfe, but was allifted afterwards 
by trifling fubferiptions. Towards the clofe of his life 
he is faid to have experienced royal patronage, to have ob¬ 
tained the fuperintendency of the garden at Hampton- 
court, and the title of Royal Profefibr of Botany ; all from 
thefavourofqueen Mary. Threeof the feCtionsof his Phy- 
tographia are feverally dedicated tobifhop Compton, the firft 
earl of Portland, and king William III. That he enjoy¬ 
ed i'ne friendfhip of Uvedale, who was his fellow ftudent; 
and the high commendation of Ray ; are fuflicient proofs 
of his perfonal and fcientific merits. The beginning 
of the Almageftum teftifies his elevated piety, which at 
the end degenerates into the orthodox ftyle of the day. 
That he was ikilled in the learned languages, and that 
Ve>L. XX. No, 1402. 
his correfpondence was very extenfive, appears from 
almoft every page of his works ; and there are many par¬ 
ticular parts which fliow his refearches to have been 
deep, and conduced with confiderable ability. It is to 
be lamented that fome of his latter pages betray a feve- 
rity of ftricture, on the literary labours of Sloane and 
Petiver. Piukenet was, apparently, a man of more folid 
learning than either of thofe diftinguiflied writers; and, 
having been lefs profperous than either, he was perhaps 
lefs difpofed to palliate their errors. As far as we 
have examined, his criticifms, however fevere, are not 
unjuft. 
Having collected a vaft Herbarium, for the time in 
which he lived, not only by means of his various corre- 
fpondents, but alfo from the treafures that were then 
daily pouring into the gardens about London, his objeft 
was to publiih a catalogue of the whole, accompanied by 
figures of the new or rare fpecies. The firft part of this 
defign was executed in his Almagejlum Buianicum, which, 
like all his other publications, is in quarto, making a 
handfome volume of 404 pages, dated 1696. His arrange¬ 
ment is alphabetical, according to the generic names at 
that time received, and adopted from Bauhin and other 
old authors, though not without many corrections and al¬ 
terations made by himfelf in this department. Each 
plant is diftinguiflied by a fpecific definition, either 
adopted in like manner from his predeceffors, or new- 
modelled by himfelf; and all the fynonyms he could 
colleCl are fubjoined. No ideas of fyftematical arrange¬ 
ment feem to have entered into his contemplation, at 
leart in the plan of this work. There are paflages in his 
writings, which fnow he had occafionally thought on 
that fubjeCt, nor could it altogether efcape a man of fo 
much reading; but it was by no means one of his pri¬ 
mary objects. Thefe were rather fpecific diftinCtions of 
plants, their fynonyms, and their hiftory. This work is 
laid to contain about 6000 fpecies, of which it-s author fup- 
pofed 500 to be new. Of thofe 6000, many are now conii- 
dered as varieties, being merely differences founded upon 
colour, or on double or Angle flowers; but, if Plukenet 
erred in thefe particulars, he erred in common with all 
the botanical world at that period. 
The Phytographia of our author was anterior in date 
to the above work, and yet is rather to be confidered as 
an accompaniment of the Almageftum. It confifts of 
350 plates, engraved by various hands, each plate con¬ 
taining figures of five, fix, or more, plants, chiefly if not 
altogether done from dried fpecimens, with various 
degrees of merit. If thefe figures feldom rife to any 
great excellence of botanical precifion, they are at lealt 
original; and not only free from the faults of copies, fo 
Copioufly difplayed in the plates ofMorifon and fuch 
authors, but alfo tolerably exempt from grofs miftakes 
of their own. Of their beauty little can be faid ; but 
the work improves as it advances. Being fo generally 
cited by fucceeding authors, efpecially Linnaeus, it is in- 
difpenlible to every botanic library. This book came 
out in four parts, of which the firft and fecond were 
publifhed in 1691, and the third in 1692. The plates of 
thefe have the names, and many fynonyms, of each plant 
engraved at the bottom. The fourth part, which com¬ 
mences with tab. 251, and was publifhed in 1696, wants 
this ufeful appendage, and moft of its figures are deftitute 
of any reference. They are however cited in the Alma¬ 
geftum, and fome of them likewife refer to that work ; 
but in fo obfeure and difficult a manner, that few perfons 
take the trouble of fearching them out, or of citing them 
correCtly in their own publications. Thofe who invefti- 
gate the matter, will find feveral plants, fuppofed to be 
of recent introduction and hitherto no where delineated, 
which were known to Plukenet; though his references 
are often fo faulty, as to damp our ardour of enquiry, by 
the needlefs difficulties they throw in our way. 
In 1700 appeared the MantiJJ'a, or Appendix to the Al- 
mageftum, confifting of 192 pages, with a copious index 
8 Q ~ to 
