MARCH 6 1 



scribers. The flower-plates are extremely fine, very 

 strongly coloured, and as fresh and bright as the day 

 they were painted, each page being covered with a sheet 

 of dark-grey thick hand-made paper, such as Turner loved 

 to sketch upon. One of the things figured is the Japanese 

 plant, Bocconia cordata (* Plumed Poppy,' Robinson calls 

 it), which we have been in the habit of thinking a new 

 plant in our gardens. Many of the plates are inter- 

 esting and a few remarkable, and the botanical details 

 of the flowers beautifully drawn, some natural size 

 and some magnified. 



1771. 'The Flora Londinensis, by William Curtis.'' 

 The first number was brought out by subscription on the 

 above date. I have the two volumes of the first edition. 

 It is the handsomest, the most artistic, and the best 

 drawn of any English illustrated botanical books I have 

 seen. I do not know who was the artist, but I imagine 

 not Curtis himself. These plates have some of the 

 qualities of Jacquin's drawings, of which more hereafter. 

 How much they were in communication, a not uncommon 

 custom of the time, I do not know. Curtis's first book 

 was a translation of Linnaeus's, with the title of ' An 

 Introduction to the Knowledge of Insects.' 



In 1773 Curtis was appointed lecturer of the Chelsea 

 Garden. The plates of ' The Flora Londinensis ' are lovely 

 large folio, and most delicately drawn and tinted. The 

 text is in English, and is descriptive of the wild flowers 

 and plants growing round London. No doubt the book 

 was suggested to Curtis by Vaillant's ' Catalogue of Plants 

 in the Environs of Paris.' It retains strongly the Herbal 

 character, and the medical details of diseases are weird 

 and extraordinary. The decision and particularity of 

 the assurance that every disease to which flesh is heir 

 will be relieved by the use of certain plants are quite 

 surprising. The place where the innocent little wild 



