An introduction to physiological and systematical botany

An introduction to physiological and systematical botany
by James Edward Smith
213854An introduction to physiological and systematical botanyJames Edward Smith

AN

INTRODUCTION

TO

PHYSIOLOGICALANDSYSTEMATICAL


BOTANY.

BY

JAMES EDWARD SMITH, M.D. F.R.S.
&c. &c.
PRESIDENT OF THE LINNÆAN SOCIETY.



London:

PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW;
AND J. WHITE, FLEET-STREET.


1807.


Printed by Richard Taylor & Co. Shoe-lane.

TO

THE HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND

SHUTE,

LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.

My Lord,

The circumstances which induce me to solicit your Lordship's protection for the following pages are such, that I trust they will ensure pardon for myself, and more indulgence for my performance than I might expect, even from your Lordship's usual goodness towards me.

The contents of these pages were, in a very unfinished state, honoured with the approbation and encouragement of an excellent and lamented lady, to whom they were destined to be offered in their present less unworthy condition. I should have been proud to have sheltered them under her patronage, because I have always found the most intelligent critics the most indulgent. Their general tendency at least, as calculated to render an interesting and useful science accessible, and in every point eligible, to the more accomplished and refined of her own sex, could not fail to have been approved by her, who know and exemplified so well the value and importance of such pursuits, and their inestimable effects upon the mind. These hopes, which my late honoured friend and patroness had, with her usual benignity, encouraged, are now most unhappily defeated, and I have no resource but in your Lordship, who is no stranger to my pretensions, nor to my sentiments, and in whom I have not now for the first time to seek an able and enlightened patron. I remain,

with the profoundest respect,
my Lord,
your Lordship's most obliged
and obedient servant,

Norwich,
Nov. 15, 1807.