MARCH 65 



incentive to the human mind, has gone for ever as far 

 as this kind of simple botany is concerned. Of these 

 highly gifted men, who worked on lines which can no 

 more be repeated than the missals of the sixteenth 

 century in Italy, Jacquin, no doubt, was the most artist- 

 ically interesting. No one who has not seen his works 

 can realise the beauty, the delicacy, the truth, the detail 

 to which flower-painting can be brought. None of the 

 other flower-painters that I know show anything like the 

 same talent of throwing the flower on to the paper with 

 endless variety, and of adapting the design to the size 

 and growth of the particular plant. This result seems 

 produced by his botanical exactness, and not, apparently, 

 by any intention to make a beautiful picture. No two 

 pages are ever filled in the same way. This does away 

 entirely with the ordinary wearisome monotony of turning 

 over drawings one after the other, with the flower right in 

 the middle of the page. His books fetch a considerable 

 price, and are difficult to procure. The one I sometimes 

 see in English catalogues is in my possession, five volumes 

 of ' Collectanea ad Botanicam Chemiam et Historiam 

 naturalem, 1786.' My copy was a surplus one at the British 

 Museum, of which it bears the stamp and date of sale, 

 1831. The plates maintain their usual excellence and 

 are nearly all coloured, with a brilliancy that has not 

 suffered at all from time. Some are of wild flowers, 

 mosses, Lycopodiums, insects, and serpents. All Jacquin's 

 drawings stand out wonderfully on the paper, but there 

 is no shading, except that the modelling is indicated by a 

 stronger tone of the same colour ; and the relief and value, 

 without any tinting of the background, are most effective. 

 In the case of the bushy little Alpines the plant is spread 

 out like seaweed and the root drawn, which gives the 

 whole growth and proportion of the plant. 



1793. ' Oxalis Monographia ' is an exquisite study of 



