P. Bryant's 1804 BOTANIC GARDEN. A POEM, IN TWO PARTS. PART I. CONTAINING THE ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. PART II. THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS. WITH PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES. The first American Edition. NEW-YORK: Printed by T. & J. SWORDS, Printers to the Faculty of Phyfic 1798. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. THE fuccefs of " THE BOTANIC GARDEN" has been fo great in Europe, and its reputation is fo well established in America, that it would betray a culpable vanity in the Publishers, were they to attempt, by any thing that they could offer in this place, to recommend the Poem to the further patronage of their fellow-citizens. They may be indulged, however, in a few remarks on the advantages of the prefent edition. The London copy, in quarto, fells for twelve dollars and upwards in America; a price which readers of Poetry, and even students of Nature, in this country, can feldom conveniently pay. It is, befide, more adapted for a library than for daily use. The Dublin edition, in octavo, which has principally circulated in the United States, is deficient both in correctness and in many plates, effential to the thorough comprehenfion of feveral parts of the work. It is in two separate volumes; and bears a price difproportionate to its value as a book. In the prefent edition, the Publishers have endeavoured to reconcile the two extremes; and to attain convenience and cheapnefs, without any cenfurable facrifice of correctness and elegance. In their edition, the Poem is comprized in a fingle volume of commodious form; the type and paper are fuperior to those of the Irish, and, perhaps, not inferior to those of the English copies; no plates, but fuch as are merely ornamental, and of these only four out of twenty-one plates in all, have been omitted; thofe which are inferted are executed in the best manner the state of the arts in this city will admit: and there is reafon to believe that few errors are discoverable in the letterprefs. On the whole, the Publishers venture to believe that they shall be found to have fulfilled every expectation which they raised by their proposals; and that they shall have acquitted themselves, in this undertaking, to general fatisfaction. New-York, March 20, 1798. |