But if this Address, _my Lord_, may be thought congruous, ’tis yet more just; and that I should let _your Lordship_, and others know, how much, and how deservedly I resent your extraordinary Favours: Particularly that you were pleased so far to animate my Endeavours towards the publishing the following _Observations_. Many whereof, and most belonging to the First Chapter, having now lain dormant near seven years; and yet might perhaps have so continued, had not _your Lordships_ Eye at length created Light upon them. In doing which, you have given one, amongst those many Tokens, of as well your readiness to promote learning and knowledge by the hands of others; as your high Abilities to do it by your own. Both which are so manifest in _your Lordship_, that like the first Principles of _Mathematical Science_, they are not so much to be asserted, because known and granted by all. The Consideration whereof, _my Lord_, may make me not only _just_ in owning of your Favours, but also most _Ambitious_ of your _Patronage_: which yet to bespeak, I must confess I cannot well. Not that I think what is good and valuable, is alwaies its own best Advocate; for I know that the Censures of men are humorous and variable, and that one Age must have leave to frown on those Books, which another will do nothing less than kiss and embrace. But chiefly for this Reason, lest I should so much as seem desirous of _your Lordships_ Solliciting my Cause as to all I have said: For as it is your Glory, that you like not so to shine, as to put out the least Star; so were it to your Dishonour to borrow your Name to illustrate the Spots, though of the most conspicuous. _Your Lordships_ Most Obliged & Most Humble Servant _Nehemiah Grew_. [Illustration] THE PREFACE. _Of what antiquity the ~Anatomy~ of ~Animals~ is, and how great have been its Improvements of later years, is well known. That of ~Vegetables~ is a subject which from all Ages to this day hath not only lain by uncultivated; but for ought I know, except some Observations of some of our own Countrey-men, hath not been so much as thought upon; whether for that the World hath been more enamoured with the former, or pity to humane frailty hath more obliged to it, or other Reasons, I need not enquire._ _But considering that both came at first out of the same Hand, and are therefore the Contrivances of the same Wisdom; I thence fully assured my self, that it could not be a vain Design, though possibly unsuccessful, to seek it in both._ _In the prosecution hereof, how far I have gone, I neither judge my self, nor leave it to any one else to do it; because no man knows how far we have yet to go, or are capable of going. Nor is there any thing which starves and stinteth the growth of knowledge more, than such Determinations, whether we speak or conceit them only._