Glasgow.
17 March.
My dear Sir
I am glad to find you are of opinion <1> that the Hyacinthus is Muscari moschatum. I have looked at t. 132 of Redouté <2> (Muscari ambrosiacum). It is exactly your plant.
I was aware that your parcels was [sic] not going to Italy till after Easter: but mine being ready & having an opportunity of sending them to London I was glad to dispatch them.
You are very kind to endeavour to procure Subscribers for my Journal <3>. I will not say that the advantage will be to me in a pecuniary point of view: nor exactly to my Publisher: for at best it will do little more than pay him its expenses. But my heart is very much set upon the thing for I do think that such a work will be useful to science. And if it could be once fairly established I have no fear of getting ample & valuable materials for its continuance. I hope when you give me your paper on Ionian plants you will add your remarks on the colors of flowers which I think very interesting. I have given £20 on No 1 & if the sale meets the expenditure I shall have no more to pay. So you see that much will depend upon the exertion of my friends.
Most faithfully Yours
W. J. Hooker.
H. F. Talbot Esqre M.P.
Sackville street
London
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 02846.
2. Pierre Joseph Redouté (1759–1840), botanical illustrator.
3. William Jackson Hooker, The Journal of Botany (London, Edinburgh: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, etc.; A & C Black, 1834–1842).