LATE WILLIAM CURTIS. ix 
credit of being a draftsman and engraver with Dr. 
Thornton, who wrote a sketch of the life and writings of 
Mr. Curtis, to accompany the three volumes of Mr. Curtis’s 
Lectures. ]; but although his eye was as correct as any one’s, 
in discovering the slightest error in the drawings of others, 
he never could draw well himself. Mr. Curtis about this 
time, also, published a valuable little tract on the Classes 
and Orders of Linneus, with two plates, coloured, 
illustrating the subject most clearly. This he dedicated to 
his friend John Gideon Loton, Esq., and it had avery con- 
siderable sale. Several of his smaller works, such as the 
Fundamenta Entomologie; Plates, &c. to illustrate the 
Materia Medica ; a work on Ornithology ; a history of the 
Brown-tailed Moth; and several others, were never pursued 
to asufficient extent to deserve particular notice at this 
time ; but in them was laid the foundation of several 
excellent after publications, on the same subjects; such as 
Dr. Woodyvill’s Medical Botany, &c. 
Mr. Curtis was unusually correct and critical in every 
subject on Natural History which came under his notice. 
But, as notes and descriptions are not complete in describing 
plants of very near affinity to each other without drawings, 
Mr. Curtis early felt the want of a correct artist, under his 
own guidance, to set forth the nicer distinctions ; and, for 
this purpose, he becaine acquainted with an artist of the 
name of Kilburn, who lived in the neighbourhood of his 
garden, in the Grange Road. This artist made many ex- 
cellent drawings of plants, under the immediate inspection 
of Mr. Curtis, some of which bear his name on the early 
numbers of the Flora Londinensis; but the excellence of 
his drawings attracted the notice of some of the principal 
calico printers of that day, who enticed him, for better pay, 
from Mr. Curtis; and he afterwards became eminent in 
that business, at Beddington Corner, near Croydon, where 
he died in comparative affluence. 
