"If your adversaries and detractors had candidly pointed out the disputable, inconvenient, or faulty parts of your system, for your better consideration and revision, I have no doubt that they would now have found in you a friend and patron, instead of an enemy and conqueror. But they were excited by an envious malignity, and a depraved appetite for controversy, to write without judgment or genius, and to blame without candour or liberality. Not that I pretend to say, that your system is already brought to the supreme point of perfection. That would indeed be a foolish assertion, which your better judgment would at once reject as mere flattery. But to give due praise to supreme merit in botanical science, and to recommend, as they deserve, your most ingenious and most useful writings, is a duty incumbent on me, as well as on all who are not destitute of every spark of gratitude, for the immense services which your labour and ingenuity have rendered to the whole world. Nor are you, sir, so little able to appreciate your own merits, as not to be perfectly conscious that the attacks alluded to originate in envy, rather than the commendations you receive, in flattery. Compliments out of the question, we certainly ought to give every one his due. "But it is time to conclude. I venture to enclose for your opinion the characters of a very handsome plant, which seems to me a new genus. I am very anxious that it should bear the name of my much-valued friend, Mr Ellis; and if, upon mature examination, you should judge it to be new, I wish you would correct my description wherever it may be necessary, and publish it in the new edition of your Genera Plantarum, under the name of _Ellisia_. This plant grows about the bases of the Apalachian Mountains, rising annually from its old roots to the height of about twelve feet, ornamented with whorls of leaves, at the distance of eighteen inches from each other. "It only remains for me, sir, to beg your pardon for this intrusion. I am well aware how many important labours you have on your hands, and you probably have many more in prospect. Grant me only your friendly assistance in my ardent prosecution of the study of nature; and may you at the same time go on advancing in reputation and success! and after you have given your works to the public, may you long enjoy the honours which your abilities have acquired! "May God grant you a long life, to investigate the secrets of nature, as well as to improve the powers of your mind in their contemplation! and may your valuable exertions benefit the literary world as long as you live!--Such is my sincere prayer. Farewell!"