100 PROSERPINA. 



4 



22. But also, in beginning c Proserpina,' I intended to 

 give many illustrations of the light and shade of fore- 

 ground leaves belonging to the nobler groups of thistles, 

 because I thought they had been neglected by ordinary 

 botanical draughtsmen ; not knowing at that time either 

 the original drawings at Oxford for the ' Flora Grseca,' 

 or the nobly engraved plates executed in the close of the 

 last century for the ' Flora Danica ' and ' Flora Londin- 

 ensis.' The latter is in the most difficult portraiture of 

 the larger plants, even the more wonderful of the two ; 

 and had I seen the miracles of skill, patience, and faith- 

 ful study which are collected in the first and second 

 volumes, published in 1777 and 1798, I believe my own 

 work would never have been undertaken.* Such as it 

 is, however, I may still, health being granted me, per- 

 severe in it ; for my own leaf and branch studies express 

 conditions of shade which even these most exquisite 

 botanical plates ignore ; and exemplify uses of the pen 

 and pencil which cannot be learned from the inimitable 

 fineness of line engraving. The frontispiece to this num- 

 ber, for instance, (a seeding head of the commonest field- 

 thistle of our London suburbs,) copied with a steel pen on 

 smooth grey paper, and the drawing softly touched with 



I hope to take it up for conclusion, in the sections of ' Our Fathers 

 have told us ' devoted to the history of the fourteenth century. 



* See in the first volume, the plates of Sonchus Arvensis and Tus- 

 silago Petasites ; in the second, Carduus torncntosus and Picris 

 Echioides. 



