OF FERDINAND BAUER. 107 
not favourable circumstances occurred which opened to him a 
sphere in which he might show all that he could do. It was 
in 1784 that Dr. John Sibthorp of Oxford arrived in Vienna, 
with the view of examining the unique manuscripts of Diosco- 
rides in the Imperial Library. Having been introduced by 
Nicholas Jacquin to Pater Boccius, Dr. Sibthorp first met 
Bauer at Feldsperg, and the former was so much pleased with 
the young artist’s performances, that he engaged him asa 
Natural History painter, to accompany him on a voyage 
which he then was about to undertake in Greece. They 
accordingly started the same year, proceeding through Italy to 
Constantinople where they spent the winter, and devoted the 
time to 1787, to visiting Athens, Corinth, the Greek Islands, 
and Cyprus; Bauer delineating both plants and landscapes. 
On their return to England, it was highly gratifying to 
Bauer to find his brother Francis settled as botanical pain- 
ter to His Britannic Majesty, King George IIL, at Kew; 
and he now devoted the chief part of his time to finishing the 
drawings made for Dr. Sibthorp’s Flora Greca; both bro- 
thers being also patronized by the late Sir Joseph Banks, 
Bart., who always remained their steady and kind friend. Dr. 
Sibthorp having died, Sir James Edward Smith published, 
in the year 1806, the first volume of the Flora Greca, men- 
tioning in his preface the merits of our friend in a most 
honourable manner.* But Bauer possessed too discerning 
and unprejudiced a mind, not to perceive that he could never 
attain any eminence by merely copying plants even with the 
most mechanical accuracy ; and it was, most probably, during | 
his travels with Dr. Sibthorp, that he had devoted himself to 
the true study of Botany as a science, since several of the 
plants, for instance Veronica glauca, Ziziphora capitata, and 
Salvia crassifolia, are mentioned as discoveries of his; and espe- 
cially in the Isle of Cyprus he appears to have been eminently 
diligent and successful. Knowing as I do also, on the other 
hand, that, even in an advanced period of life, Bauer made 
* “ Pictorem egregii nominis, Ferdinandum Bauer, cujus virtutem. icones 
nostra exhibent, secum duxit." Bs 
rd 
