232
HISTORY OF ESSEX BOTANY.
Society on its incorporation (1663). He published various works,
including A Collection of Acts of Parliament . . concerning . ,
Grants to the College of Physicians (1660), The Art of Glass: how
to colour Glass, Enamels, Lakes, &c., translated from Antonio Neri's
De Arte Vitriaria (1662),46 and an edition of the original Latin
(1668), and several papers in the early volumes of the Philosophical,
Transactions, which are enumerated by Pulteney (loc. cit.) and
include some dealing with experiments on vegetation, the
Lincolnshire fens, and the Cornish mines. The Pinax was
undertaken, he says, at the request of a bookseller, to replace
How's Phytologia, when that work had gone out of print ; and it
was to have been written in conjunction with a Dr. Dale, who,
however, died soon after the work was planned. This was not
the Samuel Dale to whom we shall have to refer at length later
on. Merrett also states in his Epistola ad Lectorem that he had
purchased figures, engraved at the order of Thomas Johnson,
to illustrate the work. These figures were, however, never
published; but remain (though Pulteney writes "nor do I find
any further notices of them") in the British Museum library.47
Pulteney writes48 apologetically of the undoubted short-
comings of Merrett's Pinax :—
" Dr. Merret, though unquestionably a man of learning, taste, and
considerable information in natural history, seems to have engaged in it too
late in life, to admit of his making that proficiency, which the design required.
Add to this, that being fixed in London, and closely engaged in the practice of
his profession, he was rendered incapable of investigating plants, in the distant
parts of the kingdom. He however engaged Thomas Willisel to travel for him ;
and he tells us that Willisel was employed by him for five successive summers.
His son, Christopher Merret, also made excursions for the same purpose ; and
Mr. Yauldon Goodyer furnished him with manuscripts of his grandfather. By
these assistances Dr. Merret procured a large number of English plants, and a
knowledge of the Loci Natales. Nevertheless, he was not possessed of that
critical and intimate acquaintance with the subject, which might have enabled
him to distinguish, with sufficient accuracy, the species from varieties. .
At the end of the Catalogue is subjoined a rude disposition of vegetables into
classes. . . This he hoped to have improved, against the time of a second
46 This translation was privately re-printed in folio in 1826 at Sir T. Phillip's press at
Middle Hill.
47 The volume is catalogued "441. i. 6. Plants. A Collection of figures with MS. notes
by C. Merrett. London, 1670, fol." It contains 97 double pages, on which are 762 figures,
evidently merely proofs, the "notes" being only Merrett's MS. names. There is no title-
page ; but the first page is inscribed as follows :—"This book did belong to Dr. Merret author
of the Pinax, &c. The wryting in it is his hand. Mr. Bateman the bookseller who sold it to
me (19 Sept., 1695) said that these cutts or figures were made by Dr. Johnson's command
(qui emaculavit Gerardum) in order to serve a new herbal which he designed to set forth. Mr.
Bateman had this Dr. Merret's executors who sold him the Doctor's (Merret's I mean)
Library.—Robert Gray, M.D."
48 Op. cit. pp. 292-4.