Your ever faithfull Friend, and Servant, THOMAS BROWNE. Norwich, May 1. TO MY WORTHY AND HONOURED FRIEND NICHOLAS BACON Of _Gillingham_ Esquire. _Had I not observed that [K]Purblinde men have discoursed well of sight, and some [L]without issue, excellently of Generation; I that was never master of any considerable garden, had not attempted this Subject. But the Earth is the Garden of Nature, and each fruitfull Countrey a Paradise. Dioscorides made most of his Observations in his march about with_ Antonius; _and_ Theophrastus _raised his generalities chiefly from the field_. [K] Plempius, Cabeus, _etc_. [L] _D. Harvy._ _Beside, we write no Herball, nor can this Volume deceive you, who have handled the [M]massiest thereof: who know that thre [N]Folio's are yet too little, and how New Herbals fly from_ America _upon us, from persevering Enquirers, and [O]old in those singularities, we expect such Descriptions. Wherein_ [P]England _is now so exact, that it yeelds not to other Countreys_. [M] _Besleri_ Hortus Eystetensis. [N] _Bauhini_ Theatrum Botanicum, _etc._ [O] _My worthy friend M._ Goodier _an ancient and learned Botanist_. [P] _As in_ London _and divers parts, whereof we mention none, lest we seem to omit any_. _We pretend not to multiply vegetable divisions by Quincuncial and Reticulate plants; or erect a new Phytology. The Field of knowledge hath been so traced, it is hard to spring any thing new. Of old things we write something new, If truth may receive addition, or envy will have any thing new; since the Ancients knew the late Anatomicall discoveries, and_ Hippocrates _the Circulation_. _You have been so long out of trite learning, that 'tis hard to finde a subject proper for you; and if you have met with a Sheet upon this, we have missed our intention. In this multiplicity of writing, bye and barren Themes are best fitted for invention; Subjects so often discoursed confine the Imagination, and fix our conceptions unto the notions of fore-writers. Beside, such Discourses allow excursions, and venially admit of collaterall truths, though at some distance from their principals. Wherein if we sometimes take wide liberty, we are not single, but erre by great [Q]example._ [Q] Hippocrates de superfœtatione, de dentitione. _He that will illustrate the excellency of this order, may easily fail upon so spruce a Subject, wherein we have not affrighted the common Reader with any other Diagramms, then of it self; and have industriously declined illustrations from rare and unknown plants._