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vi the reader to diflinguifh with precifion all thofe plants which are directed for medicinal ufe by the Colleges of London and Edinburgh, but to furnifh him at the fame time with a circumftantial detail of their refpedive virtues, and of the difeafes in which they have been moft fuccefsfully employed by different writers. A diftindive and charaderiftic knowledge of natural objeds fhould certainly precede the confideration of their different properties and qualities ; and with refped to plants, this knowledge is feldora to be adequately attained by a mere verbal defcription : accurate delineations therefore become neceffary, and this department is committed to Mr. Sowerby, an artill; of eftablifhed reputation, whofe talents are not lefs confpicuous in the corrednefs than in the beauty of his defigns. It is juftly a matter of furprife, that notwithftanding the univerfal adoption of the Linnsean fyftem of Botany, and the great advances made in natural fcience, the works of Blackwell and Sheldrake Ihould ftill be the only books in this country in which copper-plate figures of the medicinal plants are profeffedly given; while fplendid foreign publications of them, by Regnault, Zorn, and Plenk, have appeared in the fpace of a very few years. Thefe works however are far from fuperceding that now offered to the public ; for without reforting to the invidious talk of pointing out their errors and im- perfedions, the author has the fatisfadion of having exhibited Icons of feveial rare and valuable plants, which have never been completely figured in any preceding work whatever : and by fubjoining fome account of the botanical and medical hiftory of each fpecies, curiofity is more fully gratified, and a double iritereft is excited in the mind of the ftudent. Duplex ejl dos Ubelli. Refpeding