PREFACE.
A celebrated engineer has told us, that it gave him much more trouble, to write his account of the Eddystone Lighthouse, than to execute the building itself; and the author of the present work, though on a very different subject, has found himself in a similar predicament.
To cultivate the plants lately at Clapham, belonging to the Natural Order of Proteēæ, with some degree of success, of which the following pages afford the best testimony, was rendered easy, not so much by any personal experience, nor by that constant attention to them, which from habit soon became involuntary; as by the encouragement of a master, who, treading closely in the botanical steps of our most gracious King, spared no expense really necessary to their welfare, and left the hands of his servant unshackled. To describe minutely in words all the particulars of this management, he found a much more difficult task; and to have ascertained so many Generic and Specific differences, would have been quite impossible, if fortunately his labours, like those of the late Mr. Aiton respecting the Hortus Kewensis, had not been thought worthy the assistance of men more learned than himself.
That the work will be candidly received, he presumes to flatter himself, from the circumstance of a great portion of it, having been unanimously voted to be printed by the Council of the Hor-
