Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/114

 outstripped, by at least a score of years, the capacities and attainments of the time at which it appeared. There is something very naive in the remark made on the subject in a letter written by Bauer's brother. He says, "Ferdinand could not find people capable either of engraving or colouring the plates properly, and he was consequently obliged to execute every part of the work with his own hands, thus occupying far too much time. Very few, indeed, coloured copies has he been able to prepare and sell." Thus a botanical book which would have been appreciated and supported in the year 1834, or even during the magnificent and art-encouraging reign of Napoleon in France, fell to the ground in 1814. It appears, from documents in my possession, that Ferdinand was excessively and unduly disheartened by this failure; so much so, that, fearing he should never be able to do any thing else; he gathered up his papers, and closing, as it were, his accounts and transactions with the literary and scientific world, determined to withdraw to his native land, taking with him his most extensive collections, drawings of more than 2000 species of plants, several hundred sketches of animals, a very valuable herbarium and collection of skins, the whole occupying fourteen large cases, with which he set sail from England in August 1814.

The liberality with which Ferdinand Bauer had been treated by the English government, in whose service he had remained, finishing the plates illustrative of the expedition, up to the year 1813, enabled him, on his return to Austria, to purchase a small house at Hitzing, near Vienna, adjacent to the large Botanic Garden of Schœnbrunn. Here he worked very hard in executing aud completing his drawings of New Holland plants and animals, as well as some plates of his Illustrationes, filling two large volumes with the former. He enjoyed the friendship of the different Naturalists in Vienna; but the greatest compliment ever paid to his merits, proceeded from those enterprising and liberal-minded travellers, Drs. Spix and Martius, when they say in their Voyage, (vol. 1., p 9).) "that