JACOB BOBART, the elder, is an admirable portrait, by D. Loggan, taken at his age of eighty-one, and engraved by Burghers. Granger says it is extremely scarce. Beneath the head, which is dated 1675, is this distich:-- _Thou Germane prince of plants, each year to thee, Thousands of subjects grant a subsidy._ It is a venerable countenance, of deep thought. Richardson re-engraved this among his Illustrations to Granger. Granger mentions also a whole-length of Bobart in a garden, dog, goat, &c. 4to. The Encycl. of Gardening says, "Bobart's descendants are still in Oxford, and known as coach proprietors." Do none of them possess the original painting? The munificence of the Earl of Danby placed Bobart in the physic garden at Oxford, in 1632, as supervisor; and this garden flourished many years under his care, and that of his son Jacob, whose zeal and diligence Dr. Pulteney records. The elder Bobart was the author of the _Hortus Oxoniensis_, 1648. Wood, in his Athenæ, informs us, that "Jacob Bobart died in his garden-house, in February, 1679, whereupon his body was buried in the church of St. Peter, Oxon." He left two sons, _Jacob_ and _Tillemant_. Tillemant became a master coachman between Oxford and London, but having had the misfortune to break his leg, became one of the beadles of the university. In the preface to Mr. Nicholls's late curious work on autographs, among other _albums_, in the British Museum, it mentions that of David Krein, in which is the autograph of Jacob Bobart, with these verses;-- ----"virtus sua gloria. Think that day lost whose descending sun Views from thy hand no noble action done. Yr success and happyness is sincerely wished by Ja. Bobart, Oxford." It appears from Ray's History of Plants, that Jacob Bobart, the son, was a frequent communicator to him of scarce plants. It was this son who published the second volume of Morrison's Oxford History of Plants, who wrote its excellent preface, and who engaged _Burghers_ to engrave many of the new plants; which engravings are highly commended by Pulteney. Mr. Johnson, in page 148 of his History of Gardening, thus pays Bobart a high compliment:--"a phalanx of botanists were then contemporaries, which previous ages never equalled, nor succeeding ones surpassed. Ray, Tournefort, Plumier, Plukenet, Commelin, Rivinus, _Bobart_, Petiver, Sherard, Boccone, Linnæus, may be said to have lived in the same age."