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INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 309 
North American Flora of the elder Michaux, which was print- 
ed at Paris in 1803, and that of Frederic Pursh, who, after 
having been diligently engaged for more than twelve years in 
exploring the botany of this country, either by personal ex- 
amination of the plants in their localities, or by means of the 
herbariums of others, published at London, in 1814, his very 
valuable work. 
There is another author whom it would not be just to pass 
over, without some allusion to his merits in connexion with 
our subject. I refer to the younger Michaux, whose treatise 
on the forest-trees of North America, written in French, and 
published at Paris in 1812, was soon afterwards translated by 
Mr. Hillhouse into English, and printed at the same place. 
This is a splendid work, containing a great number of beauti- 
ful illustrative engravings, and embodying avast deal of infor- 
mation in relation to our forest-trees, which, though it bears 
more especially upon the commercial and agricultural interests, 
is yet, in many instances, of considerable value in a medical 
point of view. 
We have now come to the period of contemporary writers, 
in relation to whom prudence would recommend silence; as 
praise, though deserved, might to over-delicate ears sound 
like adulation, and censure might be ascribed to envy or the 
ill-will of opposite interests. Yet if we yield to this squeam- 
ish delicacy on the one hand, and to the fear of derogatory 
imputations on the other, we deprive merit of its best reward 
— the knowledge, namely, that it is justly appreciated, while 
impertinent ignorance is allowed to strut about with impunity, 
and impose its fooleries or knavery upon modest simplicity 
as the dictates of truth. I scarcely know why I should pre- 
face by these generalities the introduction to your notice of 
two works, which, from an American pen, deserve nothing 
but praise, and the character of which is so well established, 
that no commendation which I might bestow upon them 
would be ascribed to other motives than a sense of justice and 
patriotic pride. I confess, gentlemen, that I do feel some 
pride in naming to you the Medical Botany of Dr. Wm. P. 
