Page:Repository of Arts, Series 1, Volume 01, 1809, January-June.djvu/59

 Experimental chemistry and electro-cbemical science, by Humphry Davy, Esq. Sec.

Botany, by James Edward Smith,

Astronomy, by John Pond, Esq. F.R.S.

Grecian history and historians, by the Rev. William Crowe, public orator at the university of Oxford.

Perspective, by Mr. John Geo. Wood.

Music, by Mr. Samuel Wesley.

We cannot close this article of Literary Intelligence, without giving a brief retrospect of the periodical publications which relate to natural history that have lately appeared in this country. Natural history is a plant, which, even in a soil the most congenial to its growth, refuses to thrive, if unassisted by the fostering hand of power and wealth: there is no country more favourably situated tor its cultivation than ours; none that can boast of greater resources, and of men better qualified for promoting itbut still England does not appear to be the soil in which it exhibits its most luxuriant growth.

On taking a view of the numerous, splendid, and costly periodical publications in this science, with which the presses of a neighbouring nation (our rivals both in arms and science) are incessantly teemingVaillant’s Oiseaux d'Afrique, Audebert’s Singes, Oiseaux Dorés, Ventenat’s Jardin de Malmaison, Jardin de Cels, Redorte’s Liliacées, &c. We cannot conceal our astonishment at seeing such a multiplicity of the most sumptuous works go on at the same time without interfering: not to mention the host of cotemporary minor publications in this department of science, which are unworthy of support. In England, the promoters of natural history appear to be less ardent or less numerous, if we may judge from the number of publications that are daily commenced, and, after lingering for a short time, discontinued for want of encouragement: witness Bawer’s incomparable work, the "Kew Plants" in the three published numbers of which the most remarkable heaths are depicted in a style of excellence eclipsing all similar works that have preceded in this or in any other country. Perhaps the price of this work was deemed too high; and indeed half-a-guinea a plate may be a consideration to many. But Roxburgh’s "Plants of Coromandel,” a work than which (at least as to the uncoloured copies) nothing has ever been sold at a cheaper rate, is likewise discontinued. Dr. Smith’s "Exotic Botany"But to give a list of all the monthly and other periodical publications on natural history that have met with an untimely fate within the last ten years, would occupy more space than we are willing to devote to such a melancholy subject: suffice it therefore to say a word or two of the living.

Dr. Shaw continues to make us acquainted with many interesting subjects of natural history in his "Naturalist’s Miscellany,” a work particularly interesting, on account of the great variety of objects it comprehends, the materials of which are partly original and partly taken from works not accessible to the generality of the students in zoology. The figures are by the able