Queen’s hotel Cork St
7 March
My dear Henry
I do not know where you are but that does not matter I have called repeatedly on Robert Brown in Soho Sq. so never finding him I sought him in his den in the Museum<1> where I did find him & he showed a lot of curious things in physiology – pray go & see him there – he said he had not seen you a long time. He seems a good deal broken & talked in a low way about himself but still eager about science.
I am going to Abbotsbury <2> on Thursday next – now we have a railroad to Dorchester & Weymouth<3> you might pay me a visit & see the garden at a gay time – for it is preeminently bulb month in our climate & you can judge now of what has really stood the winter & what not.
Thinking I might see you here I brought an early work of Hammers <4> in English “Ancient Alphabets &c explained” which you may not know – it runs chiefly on Hieroglyphics.
I took to the Museum a curious little square terracotta die or perhaps weight for drugs or light substances found at Palmyra <5>, it has two little reclining figures with tall caps – the same on each side – & obscure remains of characters – there are some in the museum where they suppose they must have been ornaments & perhaps coloured or gilt – There was also a semicircular one with a bust & sun & moon – obverse & reverse not the same. The people in the Museum call them Sassanian <6>.
Now it is very singular that Roman small weights (of metal) are found of a type analogous at least of two small figures in a square – I saw some in the Museum – & one was found at Abbotsbury some years ago – the date of which could not be much later than that of the Palmyrene.
I believe Jane <7> is going to Torquay – I may perhaps run down & pay her a visit there – & see Veitch’s garden <8> by the way –
I hope Bath did a great deal of good to everybody – & that it has set Mlle Amelina <9> up – Have you looked through Emily’s <10> dried plants? I have got at last two more numbers of Torrey & Grey’s <11> Flora of N. America containing the Compositæ & little else – about 120 sp of Aster!
They are newly arranging the whole Palm house & Museum at Kew –
Yr aff
W F S
Notes:
1. Robert Brown (1773– 10 June 1858), botanist and Keeper of the Botanical Department at the British Museum. His residence was in Solo Square.
2. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
3. Parts of this line had carried troops from Windsor during the Crimean War in 1855, but construction was delayed by various factors and the broad guage line finally was opened on 20 January 1857. It ran from Chippenham and Frome in Wiltshire, both convenient to Lacock Abbey.
4. Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, translator, Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters explained: with an account of the Egyptian priests, their classes, initiation and sacrifices (London: G. & W. Nicol, 1806).
5. A city of the Roman world, 150 miles NE of Damascus. Its greatest period was AD130–270.
6. That is, Persian, dating from the period AD224–636, when the Persian empire was ruled by the Sassanids.
7. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).
8. James Veitch, jnr (1815–1869), nurseryman & botanist. The firm had a nursery-garden near Exeter. [See Doc. No: 06698].
9. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
10. Amelia ‘Emily’ Matilda Murray (1795–1884), author. She brought back many dried plant specimens from her tour of North America in 1854–1855.
11. John Torrey (1796–1873), botanist to New York State. With his pupil Asa Gray (1810–1888) he published the earlier parts of the Flora of North America between 1838 and 1843. The British edition was published by Wiley & Puttnam in 1838.
12. He probably meant the annual exhibition of the Photographic Society, which was held in the Pall Mall rooms of the Society of Water Colour Painters from January to March (WHFT had exhibited his new photographic engravings in their 1854 show and an 1844 calotype of his was displayed in the 1856 exhibition). The Photographic Institution also had an important exhibition in New Bond Street from January until June.