368 LIFE AND "WRITINGS OF M. DE MAHTIUS. 



r 



of their conquerors; while, in the further recesses of the forests/In- 

 dians are seen killing and eating wild animals^ among them a tapir, 

 which they have hunted. The peculiar aspect of the Caucasian and 

 American race is carefully marked. From amid these scenes of blood- 

 shed and strife rises, in different guise, the actual state of America, re- 

 presented by a female, the daughter of Europe, who holds a book open 

 on her lap, and in her hand a caduceus, the emblem of Peace, while 

 shepherds and agriculturists, of European descent, stretch out the hand, 

 to implore her protection and bounty. This picture, composed by the 

 illustrious Cornelius, is engraved by his pupil Stilke. 



Similar delineations exist in M. de Martius's works, and give proof 

 of his poetical turn of mind, to which, in composition, the German 

 tongue affords many facilities ; for it is peculiarly adapted to the narra- 

 tive of a journey, and its abrupt transitions convey with much force the 

 alternations of the traveller from security to peril, from the narrow and 

 monotonous valley to the torrent's shore or to the mountain's top. In 

 M. de Martius's style, the topographical and statistical details of the 

 journey are diversified with descriptions, as elegant and far more truth- 

 ful than those of Chateaubriand. I am not an adequate judge of Ger- 

 man composition ; but I have seen quotations from his pages, as speci- 

 mens of elegant prose, and I know that the illustrious Goethe admired 

 many of the passages extremely. The 'ISTarrative of the Expedition' 

 points out many important facts in botanical geography ; but it con- 

 tains neither descriptions nor figures of plants, these being destined 

 to form other more extensive and difficult works, in which M. de 

 Martius was so happy as to obtain the assistance of highly eminent 

 fellow-workers. 



The ' Nova Genera Species Plantarum Brasiliensium' consists of mi- 

 nute descriptions, and of 300 plates, carefully executed in the then 

 novel style of engraving on stone. The first volume is by Zuccarlni, 

 that accurate botanist, so early lost to science : the other two are by 

 M. de Martius. In the second volume are a great va^nj Amaranthacea, 

 a Family which M. de Martius particularly affected 5 in the third many 

 new Gemeriacece and highly curious Vochysiacecs and beautiful Melasto- 

 mace<B : the publication of the latter was peculiarly opportune, being at 

 the very time when De Candolle was describing Martius's species of this 

 Family in the third volume of his 'Prodromus.' The 'Nova Genera' 

 includes about 350 new species and 66 new genera; but it is the sin- 



