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to incorrectness. When plates are taken from the deli- 

 neations of such exquisite artists as L'Heritier employed, 

 they have a good chance of excellence ; but the engra- 

 vings of Cavanilles, done after miserable drawings, though 

 they deceive the eye by their neat finishing, are really less 

 exact than many a rude outline. Coloured plates, if ex- 

 ecuted with the uniformity and scientific exactness of Mr. 

 Sowerby's, or the characteristic effect of Jacquin's, speak 

 to the eye more readily than most engravings. The art 

 of printing in colours, practised formerly in England with 

 small success, was revived at Paris by Bulliard, and is 

 carried to the highest perfection in the recent publications 

 of Redoute and Ventenat, which leave hardly any thing 

 to be wished for, with respect to beauty or exactness. 

 Many of the works of L'Heritier have remained imperfect, 

 in consequence of the political convulsions of his country, 

 and his own premature death. The learned and worthy 

 Desfontaines, who travelled in Barbary, has been more 

 fortunate in the completion of his labours. His elegant 

 Flora Atlantica, in 2 vols. 4to, with finely engraved un- 

 coloured plates, is classed and modelled on the plan of 

 the Linnaean school. Such also is the plan of the works 

 of that distinguished botanist La Billardiere, who, besides 

 his account of New Holland plants, has published five 

 elegant decades of new species from Syria. That scien- 

 tific horticulturist M. Thouin, likewise a most excellent 

 botanist, though he has scarcely written on the subject, 

 is a correct pupil of the Swedish school. His general spirit 

 of liberal communication, and his personal attachment to 

 the younger Linnaeus, led him to enrich the herbarium of 

 the latter with the choicest specimens of Commerson's 

 great collection, destined otherwise to have remained in 

 almost entire oblivion. A singular fate has attended the 

 discoveries of most of the French voyagers, such as Com- 

 merson, Sonnerat, and Dombey, that, from one cause or 

 other, they have scarcely seen the light. So also it has 

 happened to those of Tournefort, Sarrazin, Plumier, and 



