From Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner   27 Mar 1809

My dear Sir

I have been prevented answering your very kind letter by many much less agreeable employments. You have given me the best and pleasantest prescription I have ever got and I only regret that it is not in my power to follow it entirely. but from my anxieties for others, and The (I believe) natural restlessness of my mind, I am not likely to enjoy much peace. I cannot think how you have discovered so much of my temper as to know that quiet and books are what I’m most what I should enjoy. I am much obliged by you giving me your opinion of so many books. I should have great respect for it, but it is of peculiar value in such a country as this where a few people love reading, and of course, you know how to recommend a book to a person inexperienced as I am. you seem to think much too favorably of me & this if you should ever happen to see me must be disadvantageous. I am only more serious & thoughtful than others of my age from having had much ill health & many sorrows. I thank you much for what you mentioned about the life of Petrarch. I have read it. I have at length got the parcel you sent me safe. It arrived yesterday after many dangers & difficulties. Mr Mackay had a deal of trouble about it. You have sent me a great number of very interesting plants. I had seen but few of them. The Lichens have revived a strong inclination I had to become better acquainted with them. I gave them up in despair being unable to learn anything from Withering. At some future time when any English book is published on the genus I should like to attend to them, at present the sea plants & mosses employ every spare moment I have. Your specimens have taught me I have Lichen Cochleatus [Leptogium cochleatum] and laevigatus [Parmelia laevigata]; The latter better than yours & I am pretty sure I know where Parmelia Clementei [Physcia clementei] grows, though I have not gathered a specimen. I shall send a few specimens of some that grow here with the next parcel. I have pustulatus [Lasallia pustulata], & many others that I think very pretty, but as I am very ignorant of what is rare or curious, I can't say that you are likely to find them of much use. I hope you have long since received a little parcel I sent you soon after my last letter through Captain Mangin. It contained a few drawings & several specimens. I should like to send another small parcel in the same way if you have got this safe. I have now a few more drawings of the new Confervae & among them No 31 a little plant of very curious & uncommon growth. Perhaps you will think it an Ulva. I have drawing and specimens of a very elegant little freshwater species & I shall have a sketch (if I can do so delicate a plant well) of No 13 which is very distinct from rosea & extremely beautiful. I only wait till April to get it in perfection. I met with C punctalis with capsules last year but I neglected to put any on glass. I have plenty of [text missing] spiralis, nitida, decorticans, [text missing] myochrous, & many other fresh water species. Have you seen single seeds n [text missing] & fucoides? Can you put a specimen of C corallina into a letter for me. I think I have mistaken setacea for that plant, & I have a single specimen of a beautiful species that may be corallina, if not, you shall have it.— I have just begun to visit the mountains a little & have got some mosses since I sent you the last things. I shall put a few in this letter. Do you want Dicranum squarrosum with fruit or Hypnum revolvens & dubium. I think I shall have Jung curvifolia with fruit to send in a little time, I am watching it. I have got J julacea or concinnata with fruit. I cannot tell from the description in Withering which it is & I have also got a morsel or two of No 16 in fruit. I think you will find it very distinct from pumila. The fructifications are so very minute & delicate that I should not have found them, but that it grows in a field here where I visited it every day. I have found Andraea alpina. Rothii is so common that it blackens the rocks in many places. I ought to have some feeling for your patience & conclude this long letter.

I beg you to accept my best thanks & to believe

Dear Sir very faithfully Yours

E Hutchins

Ballylickey

March 27^th 1809