EXTRACTS FROM HIS LETTERS. 



vii 



To Mrs. H . Serampore, Calcutta: July 22nd, 1841. 



" I was aware of the departure of Mr. Bauer through the Athe- 

 ncEum, in which an excellent notice of him appeared. He certainly 

 was a man to whom I looked up with constant admiration : he w r as 

 incomparable in several respects, and I am happy to find, that his 

 death was so characteristic of his most inoffensive and meritorious 

 life. It is also very pleasing to me to find that he continued to 

 think well of me. How I should have been able to delight him had 

 he lived a few years longer." 



Calcutta : June, 1843. 

 " Poor Mr. Bauer, we never shall see his like again, I have seen 

 but few notices of his life, which assuredly is worthy of study. 

 There is not a place I shall visit with better feelings than Kew, it 

 has so many pleasant associations even from my school- days." 



Calcutta: December 31st, 1843. 

 " Mr. Bauer is not half appreciated yet ; he is conisdered a very 

 great artist, but what is that to what he was ? But he did not fight 

 for his own hand, though he worked hard enough in all conscience. 

 Mr. Bauer in fact preceded all in the train of discovery : he saw 

 in 1797, what others did not see till 30 years after. For instance, 

 the elongation of the pollens' inner membrane into a tube, the first 

 step towards the complete knowledge we now have of vegetable 

 embryogeny. Unfortunately, Mr. Bauer drew, but did not write, 

 and when I recall to mind a remark- of Mr. Brown, that it was a dis- 

 advantage to be able to draw, I always fancy he had Bauer in his 

 mind's eye ; for had he been a writer and not a drawer, before 1800, 

 in great probability we should have known nearly as much of em- 

 bryogeny as we do now. But he shut his portfolio, and folks went 

 on believing the old fovivillose doctrine and bursting of the pollen, 

 which, his observations of the pollens' inner membrane, would have 

 destroyed at once. Then with regard to Orchidese and Asclepiadeae, 

 he was equally in advance : it would be a rich treat if some one would 

 come forward and publish a selection from his drawings, without 

 a word of letterpress." 



