Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/332

318 the art, was very great. Her own house was full of them, and others are among the chief ornaments of Calswich, Welbourn, and Ilam, the respective residences of her nephews, Mr. GlanvilleGranville [sic] and Mr. Dewes, and of her niece Mrs. Port. Mrs. Delany, among her other accomplishments, excelled in embroidery and shell-work; and, in the course of her life, produced many elegant specimens of her skill in these respects. But what is more remarkable, at the age of seventy-four, she invented a new and beautiful mode of exercising her ingenuity. This was by the construction of a Flora, of a most singular kind, formed by applying coloured papers together, and which might not improperly be called a species of mosaic work. Being perfectly mistress of her scissars, the plant or flower which she purposed to imitate she cut out, that is, she cut out its various leaves and parts, in such coloured Chinese paper as suited her subject; and, as she could not always meet with a colour to correspond with the one she wanted, she then dyed her own paper to answer her wishes. She used a black ground, as best calculated to throw out her flower, and not the least astonishing part of her art was, that though she never employed her pencil to trace out the form or shape of her plant, yet when she had applied all the pieces which composed it, it hung so loosely and gracefully, that every one was persuaded it must previously have been drawn out, and repeatedly corrected by a most judicious hand, before it could have attained the ease and air of truth which, without any impeachment of the honour of this accomplished lady, might justly be called a forgery of nature's works. The effect was superior to what painting could have produced; and so imposing, that she would sometimes put a real leaf of a plant by the side of one of her own creation,