Joannis Raii de Variis Plantarum Methodis Methodis Dissertatio Brevis

Londini (London): S. Smith & B. Walford, Societatis Regiae Typographorum, 1696. First edition.. One small worm hole in the outer margins of the last section of pages, some age toning to the last blank page; a clean copy in very good condition in a period leather binding.. Pp. (xiv), 1-48. Recent brown morocco leather in period style, lettered in gilt on the upper cover, 12mo (7.5 x 4.75 inches; 187 x 118 mm). This work is divided into five parts: I. De Methodi Origine & Progressu; II. De Notis Generum characteristicis; III. De Methodo sua in Specie; IV: De Notis quas reprobat & rejiciendas censet D. Tournefort; V. De Methodo Tournefortiana. According to Geoffrey Keynes in The Bibliography of John Ray, p. 129: this work is a "continuation of the discussion began in the preface to the Stirpium Europaerum Sylloge (1694) and in the appendix to the second edition of the Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum (1696). It was largely an answer to the criticism of Tournefort, who received a copy in June 1697, and published a reply, De Optime methodo instituenda in re herbaria, in the same year." Geoffrey Keynes states that this work in uncommon; he was only able to record eight copies, two of which are in the British Museum. No ownership marks and few signs of use. On the verso of page 48 (the last page), there is some Latin text written in an old hand at the top of the page.