Glasgow.
July 25. 1825.
My dear Sir
I thank you much for the mention of Viviani’s Flora Libyca <1> & his Plantæ Corsicæ <2>. I did ask you to be so good as to procure them for me: & when I did so ask you, I recalled your telling me that you had a friend <3> there, or about to be in the part of the country where they were to be obtained, & that that friend would take charge of them.
If you think therefore that these are the copies in question, be so good as to send them for me to Treuttel & Wurtz <4>, and they will come by my monthly parcel.
Has Lady Charlotte Lemon <5> collected many dried plants? & is there much that is rare among them?
Trevelyan <6> has been with me twice this season & spend [sic] some days here each time. I wonder how I forgot to mention that he was with me on Ben Nevis <7>, when I found the Gymnostomum Griffithianum. He is excessively keen as a Naturalist & when he went away from hence, only three weeks ago, he promised to return on his way to explore the North Highlands of Scotland, Caithness & Sutherland. A letter will I dare say still catch him at Wallington House <8>.
Arnott <9> is doing great things in Botany. He has followed my advice to accompany Mr Bentham <10>, [Requesen?] & [Andibest?] in an excursion among the Pyrenées, instead of spending the greater part of the summer in the Swiss Alps. Hence he has collected enormously, & though the party have probably made few new discoveries, they have a vast quantity of good things which few other parts Botanists have the opportunity of getting access to. I have heard three or four times from the party; Once from Barcelona. They have scarcely yet quitted the mountains. Gay <11>, they tell me, is one of a company of Naturalists who have actually a Collector in the Pyrenées in their pay: & Gay’s collection must be, however he may make it appear to the contrary, very rich in species & in duplicates of Pyrenean rarities.
Pray let me know, with the Books, what I am in your debt for them.
I have a beautiful collection of plants just arrived from the Mauritius, another from Brazil, one from Mendoza, one from Mexico, & one from Canada –
I am, my dear Sir, very truly & faithfully yours
W. J. Hooker.
W. H. F. Talbot Esqre
Albany <12>
London.
Notes:
1. Domenico Viviani (1772–1840), Floræ Libycæ … (Genoa: Pagano, 1824).
2. Domenico Viviani, Floræ Corsicæ … (Genoa: Pagano, 1824).
3. Probably William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat, who was appointed to the British legation in Florence in 1825. [See Doc. No: 01069, and Doc. No: 01250].
4. Treuttel & Wurtz, booksellers, Paris. Hooker had an arrangement with them to enclose packages from other people when sending parcels of books to him.
5. Lady Charlotte Anne Lemon, née Strangways (d. 1826), WHFT’s aunt.
6. Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, 6th Baronet (1797–1879), naturalist & antiquary.
7. See Doc. No: 01285.
8. Trevelyan’s home near Morpeth, Northumberland.
9. George Arnott Walker Arnott, later professor of botany at the University of Glasgow. He was a co-author with Hooker of The botany of Captain Beechey’s voyage … to the Pacific (London: H. G. Bohn, 1841). In 1842, Hooker transferred to him the editorship of British Flora.
10. George Bentham (1800–1884), philosopher & botanist.
11. Jacques Étienne Gay (1768–1864), French botanist.
12. Gentlemen’s apartments in Piccadilly where WHFT had rooms 1825–1827.