The Edinburgh regius botany professorship is in the gift of [James Graham, 3rd] Duke of Montrose [(1755–1836)] and was given to [Robert] Graham [(1786-1845), professor of botany at Glasgow; doubts that it was offered to [Robert] Brown. Discusses the relationship between the university, the city, and magistrates of Edinburgh, who had proposed Brown. Smith only applied as a curiosity following an invitation of some professors and others. Feeling more and more indifferent about the Cambridge professorship.

Thanks for barrel of oysters. Steadily working on his "English Flora" and hopes to get it to the press in May; expects it to be "quite an original Flora" as he has been revising the whole subject and correcting mistakes made by previous writers and compilers. Asks Goodenough's advice regarding accenting of names and whether to give derivation of generic names. The whole object of the book is "botanical determination". Asks Goodenough's opinion of the "green old age" of [Thomas William] Coke [on 26 February 1822 Coke married for the second time Lady Anne Amelia Keppel (1803-1844), fifty years his junior]. Smith hopes he has done some good with the grasses and triandria monogynia, with which [Robert] Brown is "very great" but refines too much.

Takes on advice in Goodenough's last letter on "English Flora": only explanations of generic names will be for those new to British readers; praises Goodenough's plan for accenting but decides to adopt a simpler system. Queries whether [Augustin] de Candolle's new term, "carpella", for the single grains of compound fruits should not be "carpiola". Adopting [Johann von] Schreber's [(1739-1810)] genus 'Spartina' for 'Dactylis stricta' but the French have called it 'Limnetis'. Fears [William] Swainson has not succeeded in his attempts for a British Museum post. Regrets that party politics should make men such as [Thomas William] Coke and Edmund Wodehouse [(1784-1855), politician] enemies; feels some alarm at difference in age between Coke and his new wife [fifty years his junior]. [William] Roscoe preparing a "very excellent distribution of the species of 'Canna'" for Linnean Society.