Norwich
Feb. 9. 1826.
Dear Sir
I received your obliging letter <1> with great pleasure, not only on account of your kind offer respecting Hungarian plants, but still more as it gives me an opportunity of knowing where to address you.
I found with great regret that you had left Boyton one morning, without my being aware of your intention, & before I had endeavoured to arrange any plan of our future meeting. I wished to have said as I now do, that if it suited your convenience at any time to travel to this part of the kingdom, & to visit the herbm & library of Linnæus, nothing would give me more pleasure than to submit them to your inspection, & to confer with you on those botanical subjects in which I perceive you take so deep an interest.
If you would accept of such accommodation as our house affords, Lady Smith <2> and myself will do all we can to make it comfortable to you.
I shall now be at home till I go to town the middle or end of April, but I confess it would be more convenient to me, & I think in many respects better for you, if you deferred yr coming till after my return home in the middle of summer. If however you are then going abroad, or otherwise engaged, I will be at your service at any time, if you will give me as much notice as you can. – I am hard at work at the Flora Græca, <3> which I have got pretty forward, & the 4th vol. of my Engl. Flora, a long & heavy undertaking. –
As to Hungarian plants, I doubtless want many, but can scarcely tell what, as I have not Waldstein & Kitaibel’s <4> book; nor am I in the habit of keeping specimens for exchange, the drying of which is a tedious business. I have enough to do to attend to my own proper objects, nor can I give much time to correspondence
When we meet, we can consult about these & other matters. –
I hope at last to find you in town when I come.
Lady Smith desires me to present her complimts We did not get home till the 5th of Novr – I have good accounts of our worthy friend Lambert. <5> –
Believe me Dr Sir
Yr very faithful & obedt servant
J. E. Smith.
Henry Talbot Esqr
<36?> [illegible]
Worthing
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 01357.
2. Lady Pleasance Smith (1773–1877).
3. John Sibthorp, John Hawkins, Ferdinand Bauer, James Edward Smith, John Lindley, Richard Taylor, John White; Flora Graeca sive Plantarum rariorum historia quas in Provinciis aut insulis Graeciae legit, investigavit, et depingi curavit Johannes Sibthorp. Hic illic etiam insertae sunt pauculae species, quas vir idem clarissimus, Graeciam versus navigans in itinere praesertim apud Italiam et Siciliam, invenerit (London: Richard Taylor and Co, 1806–1840).
4. Count Franciscus de Paula Waldstein and Paulus Kitaibel, F. Comitis W. et. P. K. … Descriptiones et icones plantarum rariorum Hungariæ, 3 vols. (Vienna: 1802–1812).
5. Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761–1842), botanist.