Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Robert Shimmin and PG
Distributed Proofreaders
[Illustration: FLORA attired by the ELEMENTS]
A Poem, in Two Parts.
Philosophical Notes.
The general design of the following sheets is to inlist Imaginationunder the banner of Science; and to lead her votaries from the looseranalogies, which dress out the imagery of poetry, to the stricter, oneswhich form the ratiocination of philosophy. While their particulardesign is to induce the ingenious to cultivate the knowledge of Botany,by introducing them to the vestibule of that delightful science, andrecommending to their attention the immortal works of the celebratedSwedish Naturalist, LINNEUS.
In the first Poem, or Economy of Vegetation, the physiology of Plants isdelivered; and the operation of the Elements, as far as they may besupposed to affect the growth of Vegetables. In the second Poem, orLoves of the Plants, the Sexual System of Linneus is explained, with theremarkable properties of many particular plants.
It may be proper here to apologize for many of the subsequentconjectures on some articles of natural philosophy, as not beingsupported by accurate investigation or conclusive experiments.Extravagant theories however in those parts of philosophy, where ourknowledge is yet imperfect, are not without their use; as they encouragethe execution of laborious experiments, or the investigation ofingenious deductions, to confirm or refute them. And since naturalobjects are allied to each other by many affinities, every kind oftheoretic distribution of them adds to our knowledge by developing someof their analogies.
The Rosicrucian doctrine of Gnomes, Sylphs, Nymphs, and Salamanders, wasthought to afford a proper machinery for a Botanic poem; as it isprobable, that they were originally the names of hieroglyphic figuresrepresenting the elements.
Many of the important operations of Nature were shadowed or allegorizedin the heathen mythology, as the first Cupid springing from the Egg ofNight, the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, the Rape of Proserpine, theCongress of Jupiter and Juno, Death and Resuscitation of Adonis, &c.many of which are ingeniously explained in the works of Bacon, Vol. V.p. 47. 4th Edit. London, 1778. The Egyptians were possessed of manydiscoveries in philosophy and chemistry before the invention of letters;these were then expressed in hieroglyphic paintings of men and animals;which after the discovery of the alphabet were described and animated bythe poets, and became first the deities of Egypt, and afterwards ofGreece and Rome. Allusions to those fables were therefore thought properornaments to a philosophical poem, and are occasionally introduc