1 1 iiu". .lor UNA], ui' nor AN V 



ence, but liis brief atrount contains nvinv inaccumcies — it may, T 

 tliink, be assumed tbat he never saw the volumes at Oscott, as he 

 describes them as *' quartos," they being in fact elepliant folios, and 

 their number as forty-two, whereas it was originally fifty. An 

 account of the collection will be found in the Oscott Museum Cata- 

 logue (18S0) and in an article on "The Forbes Collection " by the 

 Kev. M. Williams, then a student at the College, in The Oscotian — 

 tlie magazine of the College — vol. vii. pp. o5-73 (Easter, 1907). To 

 these reference should be made by those who wish for a fuller and 

 inoi-e accurate account of ForbesV, work than the D. N. E. supplies : 

 the following, from which it will be seen that there were two collec- 

 tions — a fact of which Mr. Alger was apparently ignorant — may be 

 (juoted, as giving in l)rief the history of the Oscott collection : — 



" A careful distinction must be drawn between the two collections 

 com])iled by Mr. Forbes. The first one, the one we are now con- 

 sidering, consisted of Hfty volumes and was presented to his daughter 

 [who had married Marc Rene, Count de Montalembert, at that time 

 serving in the British Army in India] ; the second one, consisting of 

 forty-two volumes, was the one compiled at the end of his life for his 

 little grandson [who was to become, as orator and historian, a leader 

 in the Catliolic cause in France]. On the death of her husband, who 

 at the time was French Ambassador at Stockholm, the Countess de 

 Montalembert retired to Paris, taking with her the fifty volumes of 

 her father's first collection ; later on she returned to England, and 

 died there in 1S39. She bequeathed the volumes to her son Charles, 

 and by him they were presented to the new College of Oscott, which 

 ]i id been opened in the same year." Mr. Williams proceeds to give 

 an accfiunt of the collection, from which four volumes are unfor- 

 tunately missing: "whether they were lost before or after the 

 ♦•ollretion was presented to the College is not known." 



The volumes of most interest to naturalists are the first thirteen, 

 wliieh contiiin transcri])tions in a ])eautiful copper-plate hand of lettei's 

 which had been addressed to friends and on which the Oriental 

 Mriiioivs was subse(juently (1818) based. In his preface to the first 

 of these, wliich Mr. Williams prints in full, Forbes explains that the 

 letters " were chieHy intended to elucidate the drawings which accom- 

 ])anied them " ; tlie volumes were presented to his daughter — of whom 

 i< ('harming ])ortrait is ])reHxed to vol. xiv. — on her twelfth birthday. 

 For a general (lescrii)tion of the contents of the remaining volumes 

 the soin-ces already indicated must be consulted. 



The drawings of ])lants, with which alone I am concerned, are care- 

 fully- colom-ed, and sometimes of considerable interest ; thus in vol. ii. 

 which is devoted to ))lants, there is a series (tt. 87-49) illustrating 

 tht; Coco-nut l^ilm, which is shown in various stiiges of its develop- 

 ment, and other trees of economic value are similarly treated. 

 Economic j)lants, indeed, received a large share of Forbes's attention : 

 in vol. vi. tt. S,") 98 are occupied by figures of Pe])])ers and tt. 29-51 

 of vol. xi. show various kinds of grain. The various changes of colour 

 in the flowei-s of IlihiscKs )iiiif<thilis, "the changeable Kose-tree," are 

 figured on tt. 2.S7 -298 of vol. ii. In vol. xii. (tt. 1S1-1S9) is repre- 

 sented 'the celebrated Iranian Tree near Baroche, on an Island in the 



