men, goes next month to Cambridge, whither he is invited by above twenty scholars he carries on at the same time his College here, spending April, May, and part of June there, the rest of June and July here, August at Cambridge, and finishes here in September.

Dr. Dillenius has had a large cargo of dry'd plants from Wales and the Isle of Anglesea, sent by Mr. Brewer, Mr. Green, and his journeymen there; some mosses in head he had not before; a new Fucus or two; several Lichenes; seeds of Cistus, flore punicante maculá notato,* that I found in

Mr. Richard Bradley, who, in 1733, was succeeded by Dr. John Martyn, here referred to. Dr. Martyn, at the time this letter was written, was twenty-eight years of age, and was practising medicine in the City, whence he was obliged, on account of his health, to remove, three years afterwards, to Chelsea, where he continued to follow his profession till he retired to Streatham, in 1752. In 1768 he died. His taste for Botany displayed itself very early. In 1720, he translated Tournefort's History of the Plants growing near Paris, and made collections for a similar catalogue of those about London. His subsequent Botanical Publications, including those printed in the Philosophical Transactions, were numerous; but the work by which his name is most certain to live, is his edition, with a translation, of the Georgics and Bucolics of Virgil, of which Pulteney very truly says, that, "to the classical reader in general they afford ample satisfaction; but to those who join to such elegant enjoyment, a knowledge of the learned Editor's favourite science, these volumes must afford a gratification, which they will in vain seek for elsewhere."-A single letter from Mr. Martyn is preserved in the Richardson Correspondence: it could not, however, be inserted here; as it is addressed to Brewer. 4 Cistus guttatus. L.

Jersey, and some others, which he will add to his Appendix. To-morrow I go to Eltham with Dr. Jussieu. My brother writes me, this dry east and north-east wind has done much mischief to his garden: I suppose he means to the fruit-trees now in bloom.

I hope this will find you return'd, and that your garden has not suffer'd in your absence; at least that your own health is much improv'd by it, which I wish may long continue. Adieu!

Dear SIR,

Your most obliged humble and faithfull friend,

W. SHERARD.

LETTER CIV.

Dr. Sherard to Dr. Richardson.

LONDON, August 13th, 1727.

DEAR SIR,

I wrote to you this day se'nnight in answer to your last favour, in which I told you I would send the Botanicum Parisiense and Sig. Micheli's Tables the next week, which I did on Thursday last, and hope they will come safe to your hands.

I had a letter this morning from Micheli, who writes me he has finished his book, and that eighteen sheets are printed off; but he stays for the plants he desired out of the third edition of the Synopsis, which I have neglected sending him, but have now got most of them together. When Dr. Jussieu was here, I gave him most of them I had laid by for Micheli. The title of his work is, Elenchus Plantarum rariorum Musei Micheliani,' &c. He says it shall be finished towards winter; and that he has ready by him Catalogus Plantarum in Hortis Siccis Casalpinianis, unà cum Synonymis, which he will publish as soon as the other is done. He designed a new edition of Casalpinus, with figures of those plants that are new in him; but, having inserted them in his own work, there will be no need to do it. I send him all he desires, except a few, of which I have no specimens; he promising to return those I have no duplicates of. And no man is more exact or faithful than he is, so that I only risk the danger of the sea; and, in case of losing them, I must trouble my friends to make up my collection again.

Neither this nor the following work appears to have been ever published.

2 This is a most agreeable testimony in favour of the character of Micheli, and, coming thus in the last of Sherard's letters to Dr. Richardson, may almost be regarded as death-bed evidence. It is very happily placed, as an antidote to the unfavourable opinion expressed of him by James Sherard.

No news yet from Mr. Brewer, since he went into Anglesea, whence we suppose him returned, and at present searching the places you directed him to.

YESTERDAY I sent by the Bradford carrier a box directed to you, in which are three setts of Doctor Scheuchzer's History of Japan, and

1 Among the Botanists of England, there are few names to which Natural History is more indebted than to Philip Miller. His father, as we have already seen in this Correspondence, had the care of the Chelsea Garden; and to this the son succeeded in 1722, being then thirty-one years old. Eight years afterwards, he published the first edition of his great work, The Gardener's Dictionary, a work of which Linnæus justly predicted, "Non erit Lexicon Hortulanorum sed Botanicorum," and which, while it has universally obtained the high credit it deserves, has had the singular good fortune, that, whereas it commonly happens among works on Science, that every succeeding one, like the rod of Aaron, devours its predecessors, this still maintains its place in the Botanical Library, no less valued and no less consulted than on its first appearance. Haller, Pulteney, and Sprengel are all equally loud in the praise of Miller. The account given of him by our own countryman is interesting. Sprengel's testimony in his favour, as likely to be less generally known in England, I subjoin.-"Philippus

T

a few plants for your garden, of such sorts as I hope will prove acceptable to you.-The plants are all markt as undermentioned; but of the Ficoides I shall send you Mr. Rand's names next post; he being at present in the country, and having setled the names of all the sorts in our garden. according to his own fancy. So I thought proper to send them as in our catalogue, that for the future we may understand each other. I should be very glad to know if there is any of the Rubia tinctorum cultivated in your country, and the manner how it is done; for I never saw any, till in Holland I met with large quantities. The particular management there used I was diligent to observe.—I have lately received a letter from Mr. Preston at Edinburgh, with great complaints of their loss in the PhysicGarden; and he attributes it to the ill-management of Mr. Wood, who I hear but a slight character of;

Miller omnium fuit hortulanorum, Michelio uno excepto, doctissimus; sagacissimus plantarum cultor, acutissimus examinator. Lexicon ipsius, botanicis æquè ac hortulanis necessarium, opus est immortale, cognitionum botanicarum ejus viri ditissimum compendium: plantarum, et rarissimarum quidem, descriptiones exactissimas, cum instructione ad eas colendas continet."—Five of Miller's letters are here preserved; and by these, he appears to have been a man by no means deficient in education. It is therefore not surprising that he maintained a correspondence with Linnæus and other Continental Botanists. His death took place, when he was at a very advanced age, in 1771, shortly before which time he had been displaced from his situation at Chelsea; and, as appears from the Linnæan Correspondence, 1. p. 255, and p. 583, under painful circumstances.