372 The Botanic Annual, 



The woodcuts which illustrate the Botanic Annual^ are 

 of two classes : viz., full-length portraits of particular trees, 

 and more detailed botanical specimens of several species of 

 the Coniferae. With the latter we feel no inclination to find 

 fault; they are for the most part neat, expressive, and well 

 executed ; the former, we think, are but poor performances. 

 We certainly should not have guessed what species were 

 intended to be represented by the figure of the cedar of 

 Lebanon; and the artist, as it appears to us, has almost 

 equally failed in portraying the close and sable foliage of the 

 yew. if Mr. Mudie is disposed, at any future time, to present 

 us (as we hope he will) with portraits of British trees, w^e re- 

 commend him to apply for that purpose to the same ad- 

 mirable artists, to whom we have ourselves heretofore had 

 recourse on like occasions : we mean Messrs. Strutt and 

 Williams, whose combined efforts in the graphic art, we 

 happen to know, from specimens of the kind which we have 

 seen, are fully competent to delineate both the cedar and the 

 yew, as well as other trees, to the very life. 



Enough, we trust, has already been said, to induce our 

 readers to peruse the Botanic Annual for themselves. We 

 have only a few words more of complaint to add before we 

 conclude, and these shall now be very few indeed. Our au- 

 thor seems to have a most rooted aversion to every thing in 

 the shape of an index : a deficiency of this kind we hope to 

 see supplied, should a second edition of the work be called 

 for. Ere that time arrives, he would do well to revise and 

 correct his pages, carefully purging them of those not unfre- 

 quent blemishes of style and expression, at which we have 

 already hinted. We would entreat him, also, to send forth 

 his offspring into the world decked in a somewhat more 

 chaste and suitable, that is, a less gaudy, attire. This done, 

 there would remain little, save the title of the book, to give 

 us offence, and we might say, with Juliet : — 



** 'T is but thy name, that is my enemy j — 



. Oh, be some other name \ 

 What 's in a name ? that which we call a rose 

 By any other name would smell as sweet j 



Annual, doff thy name. 



A. R. Y. 



