Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/237

 Rh 's walls covered with "ornaments of her own execution of striking elegance, in cuttings and variegated stained papers." The herbal, however, was the crowning achievement of her life. It contained nearly a thousand plants, made of thin strips of coloured paper, pasted layer over layer with the utmost nicety upon a black background, and producing an effect "richer than painting."

The flowers were copied accurately from nature, and florists all over the kingdom vied with one another in sending Mrs. Delany rare and beautiful specimens. The Queen ardently admired this herbal, and the King, who regarded it with veneration not untinged by awe, expressed his feelings by giving its creator a house at Windsor, and settling upon her an annuity of three hundred pounds. Yet Miss Seward complained that although England "teemed with genius," George III was "no Cæsar Augustus," to encourage and patronize the arts. To