From Dawson Turner to Ellen Hutchins   13 Sep 1810

My dear Madam

I have just heard that I may have a letter franked to you tomorrow, & I most gladly set myself about writing, because I wish much to convey to you the few plants I now inclose, but still more to draw from you, if possible, a few words by way of reply; since your unusually long silence has made me feel great anxiety, lest either yourself or some of your family should have been seriously indisposed. I should have written to you sooner upon the subject, had I not been apprehensive lest my letter should arrive at an unseasonable moment, & at the same [sic] willing to hope that every post might remove a suspense that could not but be painful to me. Even now I would fain hope that my fears are unfounded, & that you, like me, have been for the last two months engaged with your house continually full of friends. I would give a great deal to have been myself at Ballylickey, & not less to have had the pleasure of your society here; for I am sure that you would have met with some persons that you would not have been sorry to meet. Mr Mathias, the editor of so many elegant Italian works, & the supposed author of the Pursuits of Literature, & Mr Walpole, who published formerly the fragments of the Greek Comedians, & latterly a work on Herculaneum, & who has lived greatly in Greece & Asia Minor, have been with me. Dr Smith & Mr Hooker are now here. Mr Brown I expect daily; but Mr Borrer has given me the slip, & returned straight from Scotland to Sussex on account of the indisposition of his wife. He still, however, promises to come before Christmas. In such society I have enjoyed myself as much as it is possible for a man so much engaged by business, as I am, to do; but I am sorry to say that society is with me sadly inimical to Botany, in which I have consequently done nothing. The overlooking of Mr Hooker's tour, which is now printed to the 200th page, & the reading of Don Quixote with my eldest little girl have been my only mental exertions. The last has amused me so much that I am tempted to agree with those who consider the pleasure arising from it as an adequate reward for the trouble of learning Spanish. Dr Smith asked me for your new Anictangium (like A. ciliatum [Hedwigia ciliata]) to figure in English Botany & I gave it to him, & at the same time lent him your drawing of Ulva verticillata for the same purpose which I hope you will not disapprove. The supply of cryptogamic plants for that work begins to grow very scanty. They want Hooker's Jungermanniae which he is scarcely inclined to give before he has published them himself, & when he will do so is at present most[?] uncertain, for I think I told you he can [illegible] printer to undertake it, & I cannot advise [him] to do it at his own expense. I wish he would let me do it at mine. It ought at all events [illegible] printed before he goes to Ceylon. Dr Smith has brought here to show me, a very singular, & apparently new, species of Ophrys sent from your neighborhood by a Mr Hincks of Cork. If you know it, & have a spare specimen, I should be obliged to you for it, as I should at your leisure for your Pinguicula, of which I have given away the whole of what you were so good as to furnish me with. Allow me to remind you of the drawing of Fucus loreus, when the proper season comes; provided you at that time enjoy the health of both body & mind, that you may do which is the very earnest & sincere wish of

my dear Madam Your obliged friend

Dawson Turner

Yarmouth 13[?] Sepr 1810.

I am happy to have found your letter in which you mention the Confervae you wish to have, the whole of which I inclose excepting C aegagropila, which I have not a morsel of, & C. villosa, my only specimens of which are as big as a folio volume.