Frankfort
24 April 1848

My dear Henry

I enclose you a list of Martius’s ^<1> works which he has sent me saying they are now to be sold at a great reduction of price – I dare say Bohn ^<2> has part of them in London. Will you recommend them to Kit ^<3> or anybody likely to buy such books – Poor Martius is in distress at present having lost Zuccarini ^<4> & a son in law of his within a short time.

Endlicher ^<5> was here among the Vienna deputies ^<6> but did not stay long – Among the numerous Professors there were no botanists, they were almost all Professors of Mental & Intellectual Philosophy a most uninteresting species of Professor.

What are you occupied with at present – are the Assyrian antiquities from Niniveh ^<7> very curious. If you had been in town I meant to have gone with you to the Museum to see the Lycian collection which we did once before when in an incomplete state. I brought with me a copy of Jastrzembski’s Monuments of Angus ^<8> very curious & got up by a refugee Polish Artist under a Club called Bannatyne Club. ^<9> They seem a mixture of Celtic, Runic, Tartar & Byzantine.

The weather is so horrid I cannot get out to see Peonia Wittmanniana ^<10> which I want to see – Can you give me any news from Palermo – I hope some of our Italian travellers will come this way but the state of the country is not encouraging. I believe the insurrection about Constance ^<11> is put down. There is another foolish war in the North ^<12> that ought not to have been allowed – by the way Disraeli’s ^<13> speech about it is full of mistakes –

Y^r aff^te
W F S

I have sent Martius’s own letter to Lindley ^<14> with catalogue of his Library which you may like to see –

[envelope:]
Henry F. Talbot Esq^r
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
WFS

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Notes:

1. Dr Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), German botanist.

2. James Stuart Burges Bohn (1803–1880), a deeply knowledgeable London bookseller.

3. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.

4. Dr Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini (1797–1848), German botanist. He was a co-author of Martius’s catalogue of Brazilian plants.

5. István László Endlicher (1804–1849), Viennese botanist and philologist – and politician.

6. German and Austrian representatives met at Frankfurt in the Spring of 1848 to decide upon parliamentary reform.

7. Presumably the antiquities and inscriptions sent back to the British Museum by Sir A H Layard during his first excavations (1845–1848).

8. Patrick Chalmers, Ancient Sulptured Monuments of the County of Angus…, Edinburgh, 1848. The preface and accompanying text are by Chalmers, the lithographs by P A Jastrzçbski. Chalmers commissioned and published the work and then presented it to the Bannatyne Club.

9. Founded in 1823 for the publication of Scottish historical and literary material, and named in honour of George Bannatyne, a 16^th century collector of Scottish poems.

10. Sc. Wittmanni. See Doc. No: 06147, Doc. No: 06591.

11. Konstanz. See also Doc. No: 06028.

12. Prussian troops invaded the Danish duchy of Holstein in April 1848.

13. Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), later prime minister, was leader of the Conservative party while it was in opposition 1848–1852.

14. Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist.