10 PROSERPINA. 



Magazine,' with its insults to Turner, dragged me into con 

 troversy ; and I have not had, properly speaking, a day's 

 peace since ; so that in 1868 my botanical studies were 

 advanced only as far as the reader will see in next chapter ; 

 and now, in 1874, must end altogether, I suppose, heaviei 

 thoughts and work coming fast on me. So that, finding 

 among my notebooks, two or three, full of broken mate- 

 rials for the proposed work on flowers ; and, thinking they 

 may be useful even as fragments, I am going to publish 

 them in their present state, only let the reader note that 

 while my other books endeavour, and claim, so far as they 

 reach, to give trustworthy knowledge of their subjects, this 

 one only shows how such knowledge may be obtained ; 

 and it is little more than a history of efforts and plans, 

 but of both, I believe, made in right methods. 



One part of the book, however, will, 1 think, be found 

 of permanent value. Mr. Burgess has engraved on wood, 

 in reduced size, with consummate skill, some of the ex- 

 cellent old drawings in the Flora Danica, and has inter- 

 preted, and facsimiled, some of his own and my drawings 

 from nature, with a vigour and precision unsurpassed in 

 woodcut illustration, which render these outlines the best 

 exercises in black and white I have yet been able to pre 



Oxford. By comparing it with the plate of the same flower in Sowerby's 

 work, the student will at once see the difference between attentive 

 drawing, which gives the cadence and relation of masses in a group, and 

 the mere copying of each flower in an unconsidered huddle. 



