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IT. Anecdotes of the late Dr. Pnfrick Browne, Author of the Nrrlural H907-y Of Jdrnaica. By Aylrrier Bourke Lambert, Efq. Y. P. L. ,Y,

Read Dec. I , 1795.

AVING in a viGt to Ireland in the year 1 7 9 accidentally H met with Dr. Patrick Browne, \veil known to this Socicty by his Natural Hitlory of Jamaica, I jud ed it might not be an unac-

veteran in thofe purfuits which form the intentions of our meetinqs. I firfi heard of him by the country people in the neighbourhood

of Ballinrobe in the county of Mayo, at which place lie lived. I fent him a merage that I would wait on him. H e was then fo infirm that I found him confined to his room and his bed, bur hc I-eccived me with much cordiality when I told him my errand was to viiit him merely from refpel3 as a lover of the Science of Rotany ; and I ga\e him the firit information of our inflitution, and the fuc- cefs that had hitherto attended our refearches.

H e converkd much on the fubjea of botany, and informed mc that he had correfponded for twenty years with L innzus himfelf, and had communicated many plants to him. Thofe Gentlemen w h o are at all converfant with the Ammzitatef Academic& will ~-ecoIlefi, in the fifth volume of that colletlion, a paper under the title of pugillus Plantarum Jantaicenjum, in which the defcriptions of I 30 fpecies are more corrc&ly given than they itand in Dr. brown^'^ book. This was in confequence of Dr. Solander’s I ~ i n g purchnfed Browne’s whole collc&ion, and fent it to Sweden for Linnzus.

4 And

eeptable anecdote to give fome accoun 7 of my interview with this

3 1clt.. LAMBERT'S Anecdotes of

And h x c e , in the Species Plantarum of 1764, Linnzus was enabled to correQ both Sloane and Bruwtze himfelf in many inflances.

After Dr. Br-owm's return from Jamaica, and the publication of his Hifiory, he took another voyage to the Weft Indies, where he xefided, principally in Montferrat and Antigua, occupied in the praEtice of phyfic, for four years, H e returned home for the lafi time in 1781.

Having much leifure during this Ray in the iflands, he colleQed a large Herbarium, and many €eeds, which on his return he pre- (ented to Dr. Edward Hill, Profeffor of Botany in the Univerfity of Dublin.

He alfo beqan a Floua Ikh'~ Occidmtalis, which formed a thin quarto volume; this he prefented to me, and it is now in the pof- fefion of our Prefident. I recollel3, in {peaking of this manu- krcript, that he told me he had taken uncommon pains to defcribe and dikriminate the generic charaEters of the IpomGea and Convol- vulus; and that Linnzus had fignified, in a letter to him, his appro- bation of the diCtinAions given of thofe genera.

I could not help remarking the fmall number of books that he feemed to poirefs on the hbj& of Natural Hiitory, his fupellex being confined to the Genera and .5$wcies Plantarum of Linnzus, and a copy of Hill's edition of Ray's SynopJi, efpecially when I recolleEted the confiderable number of authors he had quoted in his Hiltory of Jamaica ; but he Coon gave me to underitand that in his lait voyage he had the misfortune to lofe his library, confilting of 200 volumes on Natural Hifiory fubjeEts.

During my abode in his neighbourhood I paid him feveral vifits, in one of which he made me a prefent of a MS. Flora Hiberni'ca, and of a fmall Herbarium colleQed in the counties of Mayo arid Galway, with a feparate ColleAion of Moffes, which are now in the poffefion of this Society.

In

the loft Dr. Pdfrick Browtie. 33 In my way to the Do&r I one morning found the cytqirus cH-

r:u:eus of Linnzus, which had efcapcd his notice, and of which he iinmediately gave a fhort defcription. This I have the pleafure of prefenting to the Society, as a fpecimen of his hand-writing, and as the lait defcription of a plant tha t he ever wrote.

W h e n at Dublin, fome time after I left him, I procured from Mr. IVilfon the bookfeller the letter I now produce, which was written a little time before his death. I produce it, not becaufe it contains any very interefihg information, but as a proof that to the laft he preferved a wifh to improve a id propacpte botanical knowledge. By this it appears too, that he had meditated to give all the aifiitance in his power towards the publication of the Flora Hibernicz

H e received from me the firfi intelligence of the new cdition of his Hiltory of Jamaica, and expreffed a great defire to have feen i t ; but he died foon after, aged 70, and was buried a t Crofboyne near Caitle Macgarret in the county of Mayo.

Letfer from Dr. Browne to hfr. FfiPn Bookfeeller of Dublin, written a litrle while Sflore his Death.

‘ 4 MY defign was only to give a fimple and as cheap a Catalogue af the plants I rnct with here as I couId devife. I nientioned it to Sir J. Banks, and h e affured me he fpoke to the Provofi, and lie promifed to put a Flora Hibernica on foot. Such a Catalogue as mine might be of great fervice to fuch a work, and fuch a work alone deferves the einbelliihment and attention you mention. But it would require a viGt to the fouth and north of the kingdoin; undertakings by no means fit for infirmity at 70. However, by publifhing fmall Catalogues, it might be brought about by indivi- tluals, and mine you are welcome to towards any thin3 of that fort.

V O L . IV. F P L I ~ t ney’s

34 Pukney’s View of Linnaeus I have not feen, and wifh you n.oul& fend it to me: I will get one of our carriers to call for it foon, and. will be obliged to you to alter fuch Englifh name; as you fec pr+ per. As to the Erifi, if ever you print it, put the Irifh in Italicks only. I wrote them as much to the pronunciation of thc Irifh as Z could, but not according to the Irilb orthography, which I could not find in any book. Pddowp$e is.uiidoubtedly the proper name of the Hippuris. I do not think the addition of ruJ proper to any name, and the method of adding a ihort charaaer to the different: getzero (as in Liiinzus’s sr/leemcl) beit, as in Martyn’s of Cambridge. You mention the title-page : I think youought not to publiih more than a defign of printing a Flora Hibemica, if fuch a thing could be completed, and of giving a Catalogue, in the cheapeit manner polfrble, of fuch plants as have been colleQed for fuch an under- taking, with the Englifh and Iriih names, keeping the defcriptions :d reinarks for a capital work. As to Theirlheld and K. Eogh’s, I. have had them, and think nothing of them. I lofi all my books a few years ago : I had about 200 botanical books, and now I have only the Genera & Species Plantarurn of Linnaus, with a copy of Ray’s SynopJi in a Linnoan drds, which was thc amufement of fome time to me fome years pafi. Lord Lucan promifed to fend me another copy of Dill. and Ray’s SynopJs. If you could fuccecd in getting any other additions, fo as to undertake B general Flora IAberniccl, if I live and am able to fiir I ha l l give you what afiitance I can in the maiiufcript you have, which you may keep. L~UJli~cllfn

Scoticum of that MS. is the Smyrniurn OiuJatrum. ‘( I have made out a Catalogue of our Agarics, for which this

lait feafon WJS very favourable, and it amounts to eighteen or more ; bgt I have not this by me.”

Mr. LAMBERT’S Anecdofes of Ihc Iatc Dr. Potrick Erowrie.