Moscow
Oct 29
My dear Henry
I hear you complain of me as a correspondent by this time you have recd the huge Caucasian packet & selected yr portion & sent the rest to Oxford – I hope – so I soon expect to hear from you <1> – I am sure you go to Cambridge for the sake of the Hortus Cantabrigiensis–<2> I fear you prefer Professor Martyn & Mr Don [sic]<3> to Professor Williams & the memory of Mr Bobart.<4> I am just acquainted with Professor Fischer,<5> a naturalist in every possible way he is going to publish a Historie naturelle du Gouvernement de Moscou with plates which will be delightful. I have neither time nor room to describe to you Ct G Razoumovsky<6> who is another grt naturalist & who is going to publish an ouvrage Zoologique Botanique Géologique Archéologique Météorologique<7> upon Russia he is author you know of Hist. Nat. du Jorat<8> When you travel in Poland I will give you a letter to a lady who lives in a castle surrounded with cypripedium & orchises of all kinds – but tho in the latitude of Melbury<9> they have Lombardy poplars as a curiosity for the climate myrtles & pomegranates unknown of course – What do you think of Mr Salisbury’s book?<10> have you seen the Bibersteinia?<11> They have transparent apples here I wish I knew how to send some plants or grafts for nothing is so faithless as an applepip –
Yr affte
W T H F S
W H F Talbot Esqr
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 00377 and Doc. No: 00781, 13 Oct 1817.
2. Hortus cantabrigiensis, literally, the Cambridge garden. The 'Old' Botanic Garden at Cambridge was opened in 1762 on the grounds of an ancient Monastery of the Austin Friars. The site for the 'New' Botanic Garden was acquired in 1831. The Oxford Botanic Garden, more familiar to Uncle William, was already venerable by the time of the letter.
3. John Martyn (1699–1680), professor of botany at Cambridge. James Donn (1758-1813), FLS, Curator of the Cambridge Garden from 1794 until his death.
4. Prof George Williams (1762-1834), Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Oxford (Uncle William must have come across him while an undergraduate). Either Jacob Bobart (1599–1680) or his son, also Jacob Bobart (1641–1719), in turn superintendent of the Oxford University Physic Garden. William is teasing Henry for preferring Cambridge to his own university, Oxford.
5. Johann Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim (1773-1853), Professor of Natural History at Moscow University. See Doc. No: 00792.
6. Count G. Razoumovsky (1759-1837), Russian nobleman, botanist, zoologist, geologist. See Doc. No: 00790.
7. A zoological botanical geological archaeological meterological work.
8. Histoire naturelle du Jorat et de ses environs… (Lausanne: J. Mourer, 1789). The Jorat is a range of mountains in Switzerland.
9. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
10. Richard Anthony Salisbury (1761–1829), botanist, accused of plagiarism in some of his writing.
11. Bibersteinia was a type of geranium; named afterFriedrich August, Freiherr Marschall von Bieberstein (1768–1826), author of the Flora taurico-caucasica - see Doc. No: 01099.