Xvi THE HISTORY OF THE BOTANICAL MAGAZINE 
Londinensis, a magnificently illustrated folio work, which 
almost ruined its author, and was never completed. Never- 
theless, a second considerably extended edition was edited 
by the late Sir William Hooker, between the years 1517 
and 1828. The Flora Londinensis was issued in parts, and 
continued until 1787, which brings us down to the leading 
subject of this sketch. 
Tur First APPEARANCE OF THE “ BoTANICAL MAGAZINE.” 
Though Curtis was unfortunate in his too ambitious lora 
Londinensis, his project of an illustrated serial of octavo size 
and modest price was well conceived, and resulted in the 
most unqualified success. Indeed, it was the foundation of 
periodical illustrated botanical literature. I have not seen 
any prospectus, if such was issued, but the very full title- 
page and the preface to the first volume sufficiently explain 
the design and scope of the work. In the preface we are 
informed that the Botanical Magazine’ owed its commence- 
ment to the repeated solicitations of several ladies and 
gentlemen, subscribers to the author’s Botanic Garden ; and 
it is further stated that the work had succeeded greatly 
beyond the author's warmest expectations. 
propose now to pass the whole work in rapid review, 
touching upon the more remarkable events in flower 
gardening, and briefly noticing kindred publications in 
chronological order. 
FIRST PERIOD: 1787—1800. 
During this period Volumes I. to XIV. appeared, and it 
has been thus limited because the author died in July, 1799, 
at the comparatively early age of fifty-three, and while the 
magazine was still in its infancy. But this was not Curtis's 
only essay with a pictorial octavo, for in 1792 he began 
issuing diminished figures of his Flora Londinensis, and 
decades of coloured figures of medicinal plants. Of the 
first only thirty-six plates appeared; but it is asserted by 
Thornton to have given birth to Sowerby and Smith’s 
English Botany, though Smith himself hints! that Curtis 
imitated English Botany as a last effort to keep the Flora 
Londinensis afloat. Considering the dates of publication, 
Thornton’s statement is hardly correct. He also states that 
' Rees’ Cyclopedia. 
