Dear Sir

I venture to beg your acceptance of the ponderous & venerable Tome, that will accompany this – He is indeed a tatterdemalion in dress, but you will look deeper for his merits.

I was trying my hand at criticism, & with a view to this to this was looking for Cooper’s Thesaurus, ^<1> when I found that of Joranus – The object I had in view, was to collate the different uses of Concerto in this respect I have not succeeded –

As I find I have am back’d by some good authorities – Honest Seapalu[?] & Thucydides ^<2> I presume to suggest whether the name “abesenthum” may not have [taken?] place from the bitter taste of the plant – untouchable, uneatable undrinkable –

To the authorities brought forward by to my aid by Joranus I would add that of Thucydides in his description of the pestilence [illegible deletion] at Athens

Τα γαρ ορνεα και Τετραποδα οσα ανθρώπων άπτεται ^<3> – Lib. ii –

I will not further apologise for what your kind present has occasion’d –

Agnosco viteris but Agnosco veteris vestigia flammæ ^<4>

I am Dear Sir respectfully & faithfully
L Bowerbank

Vicarage –
Thursday –

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Notes:

1. Thomas Cooper, Thesaurus linguae Romanae et Britannicae (1565).

2. Thucydides ( ca.460–404), Athenian historian.

3. The birds (omens) have four feet also as far as concerns mankind.

4. ‘I recognize traces of an old passion’. Virgil, Æneid iv. 23.