LETTER LIII.

Mr. Hearne to Dr. Richardson.

EDM. HALL, OxON., June 17th, 1717.

HONOUR'D SIR,

UPON my return out of the country, where I had been in quest of antiquities, I found yours of the 5th instant.

I am sorry your agent should neglect to subscribe. I suppose Rossi Historia regum Angliæ may be one of the books you want. But it is so very rare,1 that I cannot be master of it myself. The last I had I bought of one of the subscribers, namely, Mr. Hall, of Queen's College; and I gave thirty shillings for it. It was for a learned man. But I know not where to have another.

Mr. Baynes hath subscribed for Camden's Elizabetha for you; and I shall deliver it to him when finished.

I am very glad that you have got some inscriptions that may be of use in my inquiries. I have many things of that nature; some collected by myself, and others communicated by friends. What you shall transmitt will be of great service, particularly in my present circumstances, being excluded from the Bodleian Library, and not permitted to

1 See Note to Hearne's letter, p. 120,

have the benefit there of a common student,2 which is the reason that I cannot now give you any account of the Transcript of Kerby's Inquest relating to Lincolnshire, that is in the Bodleian Library. I do not know but Mr. Thoresby can give you some satisfaction as to this point.

I am, SIR,

Your most obliged humble servt,

THO. HEARNE.

P. S. I believe you are acquainted with some of the Chapter of Lincoln. If so, I wish you would be pleased to ask them whether they have not a box of papers relating to Dorchester, near Oxford, and another relating to the Priory of Dorchester. A resolution of this query will be of use to me.

2 The prosecution against Hearne, which produced in the first place his temporary exclusion from the Bodleian Library, and afterwards his being prohibited printing, had begun some years before the date of this letter. It could not be, after the events of the last four reigns, but that the spirit of party should run high; and no one who has been within the influence of that spirit, either as an agent or a patient, can fail to know the extremes to which it is sure to hurry its unfortunate votaries. What was particularly unlucky for Hearne, he was a Jacobite and a non-juror, and was not a man to conceal his sentiments, to which indeed he had given the fullest publicity in his praise of Dodwell, who was of the same opinions, prefixed to his edition of that author's Dissertation on Woodward's Shield. Subsequently, indeed in the very year when this letter was written, some far stronger passages in his Preface to Camden's Elizabetha gave more deadly offence; and the consequence was, that a plea was made of his holding, contrary to the statutes of the University, another office in conjunction with the second librarianship of the Bodleian; and he was, as here mentioned, excluded from the library and his post.

K

LETTER LIV.

Dr. Sherard to Dr. Richardson.

DEAR SIR,

LONDON, February 18th, 1717-18.

AFTER the necessary visits paid here at my return, I can't forbear troubling my old acquaintance, and assuring them how glad I am to hear they are alive and well. As you are one of the oldest of them, I write to you the first, and return you hearty thanks for your favours to my brother, whom you have so far incourag'd as to make him in love with Botany, whereby he will be a very able assistant to me in my Pinax: he gives you his service, and threatens to accept of your kind invitation of visiting you, the Northern and Welch plants, this summer; and I believe I may accompany him.

I am very much press'd for several English plants, to send to three foreign correspondents, who are all about printing, but stay till I can send them over the English specimens they desire to be satisfied in. Mr. Vaillant, at Paris, has finish'd his History of the Plants about that City,' but is

1 Of Vaillant, Haller says" Prodemonstrator plantarum Horti Regii Parisini, Chirurgus, sed botanico studio addictissimus. In plantis difficilibus, Muscis, Fungis, Lichenibus, plantis alioquin ob parvitatem suam et difficilem inventionem minùs notis, felix et accuratus,

doubtfull of several of Mr. Ray's, especially fuci, grasses, and mosses. He wants but few of them; but without comparing them is fearfull of multiplying species.

Mr. Aubriet, the King's painter, that travell'd with Dr. Tournefort, lives in the same house with him at the garden, and has design'd what are new or not well figur'd, particularly the Musci, with their heads, the grasses, and twenty-eight Orchides.2 There are two hundred and fifty desseins in all, multa addidit Tournefortianis, novamque methodum naturali proximam meditabatur, nisi morte fuisset interceptus." (Bibl. Bot. 11. 139.)— He first appeared as an author in the Philosophical Transactions, No 354, in the form of a letter to Dr. W. Sherard: subsequently, he published several papers, all on the subject of Botany, in the Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences; but his Botanicon Parisiense, the work here alluded to, was not printed till 1727, five years after his death, when it was given to the world by Boerhaave: it forms a handsome folio volume, with thirty-three plates. Sir James E. Smith, who examined Vaillant's Herbarium at Paris, was of opinion, from his manuscript observations, that he was a much better Botanist than is generally supposed; and he adds, that "he had formed excellent conjectures about the affinities of many new plants, as well as the synonyms of many old ones."-Tour on the Continent. 1. p. 118.

2 These are the drawings which form the plates of the Botanicon Parisiense. The name of Aubriet nowhere appears as an author: as an artist, he was eminent. Tournefort, in his Voyages, 1. p. 2, after speaking of him as his companion, gives him nearly the same praise as Dr. Sherard does :- -His words, in the translation, are, "Mr. Aubriet, of Chalons in Champagne, is no less industrious than skilful in painting in miniature the plants of the Royal Garden. Nothing has hitherto been seen so beautiful in that way; and, accordingly, his ability has merited him the place of Painter of the King's Closet.”—Many of the figures of plants, of which Antoine de Jussieu gives an account, under

which will set that part of Botany in a clear light: to do him justice, he is the most accurate Botanist I ever knew, and the most cordial. I am in hopes he'll live to finish his New Method, which you will be charm'd to see. I am looking over my brother's specimens for him; but I know he wants several, besides the Musci and Fungi. When I have done, I'le beg your's and other friends' assistance; not being able to furnish him time enough with my own, which are all pack'd up in warehouse, where they must remain, till my brother can find a house that will be convenient for us both, which I hope will be before summer.

I visited my old acquaintance, the Bishop of St. Asaph,3 lately, who mentioned to me Mr. Fowkes,*

the name of Icones Regiæ, were drawn by him; and two manuscripts of his are mentioned by Haller, Bibl. Bot. 11. p. 110-the one with the title, Recueil de différens Papillons: the other also on the subject of Entomology.

3 Dr. John Wynne.

4 The name of Dr. Robert Foulkes, the individual here alluded to, is neither recorded by Pulteney nor Nichols; but he appears by his letters, of which there are several in this Correspondence, to have been ardent in the pursuit of Botany. He resided at Llanbeder, near Ruthin, in Denbighshire, whither he often invited Richardson. In one case, he urges him "to come in the beginning of June, and with a resolution to stay two months;" and he assures him, "you shall have the best welcome my poor country can give, or I can make." It was upon his authority that the Cucubalus baccifer was admitted into the British Flora; and in one of his letters, preserved by Dr. Richardson, he informs him that it was done in error. A portion of this letter is printed by Sir J. E. Smith, in his Linnæan Correspondence, п. p. 171.