7 APRIL 1849, Page 19

HUMPHREYS'S BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

Mr. Noel Humphreys brings the skill and taste of a competent artist to the task of illustrating Mrs. Loudon's descriptive•catalogue of annuals and perennials in The Ladies' Flower'-Garden; a very worthy and useful con- junction of art with science. The student of ornamental painting will find these illustrations an admirable example; the amateur floriculturist will find a trustworthy guide to the seed-shop, learning from Mrs. Loudon's text and Mr. Humphreys's drawings, what the sad brown paper packets or sober roots will turn to in the parterre or flower-stand. The colouring of the lithographs is admirable for force and delicacy; showing what com- petent supervision may do even with works reproduced by wholesale. A judicious and cunning graduation of tints enables the artist to obtain from the dull paper a degree of brilliancy that cheats the eye: from the burning crimson of the moony to the brilliant and delicate yellow of the heartsease and the enamelled white of the water-lily, every tint is at his command.