Chapter I: Part II: Containing

THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.

A POEM.

WITH

PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES.

VOLUME THE SECOND.

VIVUNT IN VENEREM FRONDES; NEMUS OMNE PER ALTUM
FELIX ARBOR AMAT; NUTANT AD MUTUA PALMÆ
FÆDERA, POPULEO SUSPIRAT POPULUS ICTU,
ET PLATANI PLATANIS, ALNOQUE ASSIBILAT ALNUS.

CLAUD. EPITH.

THE SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY J. NICHOLS,

FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD. M, DCC, XC.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The general design of the following sheets is to inlist Imagination under the banner of Science, and to lead her votaries from the looser analogies, which dress out the imagery of poetry, to the stricter ones, which form the ratiocination of philosophy. While their particular design is to induce the ingenious to cultivate the knowledge of BOTANY; by introducing them to the vestibule of that delightful science, and recommending to their attention the immortal works of the Swedish Naturalist LINNEUS.

In the first Poem, or Economy of Vegetation, the physiology of Plants is delivered; and the operation of the Elements, as far as they may be supposed to affect the growth of Vegetables. But the publication of this part is deferred to another year, for the purpose of repeating some experiments on vegetation, mentioned in the notes. In the second poem, or LOVES OF THE PLANTS, which is here presented to the Reader, the Sexual System of LINNEUS is explained, with the remarkable properties of many particular plants.

The author has withheld this work, (excepting a few pages) many years from the press, according to the rule of Horace, hoping to have rendered it more worthy the acceptance of the public,--but finds at length, that he is less able, from disuse, to correct the poetry; and, from want of leizure, to amplify the annotations.

In this second edition, the plants Amaryllis, Orchis, and Cannabis are inserted with two additional prints of flowers; some alterations are made in Gloriosa, and Tulipa; and the description of the Salt-mines in Poland is removed to the first poem on the Economy of Vegetation.