THE HISTORY OF THE BOTANICAL MAGAZINE XVil 
Curtis’s figures of medicinal plants formed the foundation 
of Woodville’s Medical Botany, perhaps on better grounds. 
At the commencement, each monthly number of the 
Botanical Magazine contained three coloured plates, and the 
price was Is.,and no change was made during the founder's 
lifetime. All through this period the volumes did not 
correspond to the years; that is to say, they ran from 
February of one year to January of the next, and the date 
of the title-page was usually, though not invariably, that of 
the year in which the volume was completed. Whether any 
portion of the first volume appeared in 1786 I have not 
been able to ascertain, but the first half a dozen plates bear 
that date. The Magazine became popular at once, and soon 
attained a monthly sale of 3,000, which was steadily main- 
tained until Curtis’s decease. William Curtis's name was 
retained on the title-page of the fourteenth volume ; and it 
appears from a memorandum in the Kew copy, attributed 
to the late Professor Henslow, that his brother’ conducte 
the Magazine from plate 450 until Dr. Sims became editor. 
In the original account of this period it is suggested that 
Curtis himself may have executed the drawings * for many of 
the plates in the early volumes; but there is a statement by 
the editor after plate 1,232 (in the Kew copy), that, with 
the exception of sixty-seven drawn by Mr. Sowerby and 
eight by Mr. Sansum, the figures up to that date were all 
done by Sydenham Edwards, whether his name was 
appended to them or not. But what is most curious, 
twelve plates bearing the name of J. Sowerby were in 
reality drawn by Edwards. The numbers are given as 
well as of all those drawn by Sowerby, and No. 1 is 
included as his work. 
In this connection it may be added that an outcome of 
the publication of this history was the purchase by Kew 
from the Curtis family of 1,635 of the original drawings of 
the first series (1787 to 1826), during which period plates 
1 to 2,704 were issued. This leaves 1,069 to be accounted 
1 Thomas Curtis, one of three brothers of the botanist, according to 
Dr. A. Curtis. 
2 Dr. Albert Curtis, of Staines, a direct descendant of William 
Curtis, to whom I am indebted for all of the previously unpublished 
particulars of the family contained in this sketch, sends me the 
following note : —‘‘I believe Curtis, the botanist, did draw some of the 
plants figured in the Botanical Magazine, but he felt the want of an 
artist to act under his direction. In some way he heard of Sydenham 
Edwards, the son, I believe, of a schoolmaster in Wales, who, as a lad, 
showed some talent for drawing, and had him sent up to London for 
the purpose of having him educated as an artist.” i 
