From Dawson Turner to Ellen Hutchins   21 Jul 1811

I have just had the pleasure, my dear Madam, of receiving your long & interesting letter, for which I am infinitely indebted to you, & I trust I value as I ought your good kindness in writing to me so immediately upon being released from a visitor, from whom, however pleasant or amiable, I cannot help congratulating you upon being freed, as a mind ill at ease, as yours has been, by reason of the health of those most dear to you, could but ill brook the society of a person whose taste & feeling were not congenial to your own. I feel sincerely for your present situation, & am extremely concerned that the two last letters I wrote to you betrayed a degree of impatience at not having heard from you, & a fretfulness of temper which, unhappily for myself & my friends, was born with me, & will, I fear, go with me to the grave. I am heartily sorry for having suffered myself to betray it towards you, & you may believe me I would upon no account have done it had I not feared that it was the health of yourself & not of your friends that kept you silent. Hereafter I promise not to be guilty of it again, & I trust I shall keep my word, though it will be with difficulty, if you put me to too great a trial. Pray oblige me by mentioning whenever you write how Mrs Hutchins is. I too have an aged mother, but, thank God, she is in excellent health & spirits: were she not so, & I had even your goodness of heart, to induce me to devote my time as I ought & think nothing a fatigue for an excellent parent, still, flung as I am in the midst of a world with 6 children of my own about me, I should be debarred from the comfort you have in doing your duty. Walter Scott’s beautiful apostrophe to your sex, in which he most justly calls you our ministering angels in the hour of pain & sickness, has always appeared to me to fall short of the truth, & I repeatedly say to myself, while thinking of your moral superiority over us, “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven” — Though it please God to take Mrs Hutchins from you, as in the course of Nature must be looked for, I heartily wish it would be possible for you to be near my family; for you would find in my children a set of girls that would interest you by their unartificial manners, & in Mrs Turner a woman whom you would appreciate & who already appreciates you. God grant, however, that such an event may be far off. — I have to tell you of a new Poem by Walter Scott, published last week, & already out of print, nor likely to be reprinted except in the Edinburgh Annual Register, for which it was written. It is a Spanish tale, founded on the story of Roderick the last of their Gothic Kings going into a chapel beneath the Cathedral at Toledo, in which he sees, as in a vision, the impending conquest of his realm by the Moors, its restoration to Christianity, the Spanish victories in both Indies, & the events of our times. Such a story in such hands cannot but have the highest interest; yet I doubt if it will ever be so popular as his former poems, though aided by all the glow of British patriotism, because, being written in Spencer’s stanza, it necessarily bears marks of labour & has passages invented for the sake of the rhyme, & being a vision it is kept in a degree of obscurity, lest the King should be thought to have seen too clearly. Should you not be able to get it, pray let me know & you shall have my copy. I only wish we were near enough for you continually to use my library as your own. The Jungermannia in your letter is very different from any I ever saw. I shall send it tomorrow to Mr Hooker in London, & I will let you know as soon as I receive his answer. I shall tell him also to revise his opinion of what he called J.curvifolia. The water plant appears to be Roth’s Ulva lubrica & yet I do not think it is so; both because the seeds do not lie by fours in squares as in that species, & because I think you sent me U. lubrica some short time ago, & consequently would have known it again had this been the same. I think I thanked you for the two Pinguiculae in the few lines I wrote you on Friday sennight from Norwich. Mrs Turner has since then regained her strength surprisingly, & my little Ellen is quite well. I have dispersed my other children among their relations so that I feel quite solitary in my house. The worthy Bishop is now at Norwich, & is so good as to say you may continue to direct to him for me. I shall be there before long, & will then beg him also to favour me with his privilege to you, if I can but find anything worth sending to you. If you have really met with Hypnum rufescens, I shall be very glad; for it is a scare plant, & one that is little known. I have seen in Scotland large varieties of Grimmia acuta very like it. I rejoice extremely at your finding Mr Hooker’s book & Vaucher’s interesting; the former in particular because I had so much to do with it. Tasso I am sure you will enjoy. Dr Smith has been dangerously ill in London with a violent fever & I cannot yet learn he is recovered, which makes me very uneasy; for I have a great regard for him, an excellent man, & a sincere friend, & his loss to me as a Naturalist would be irreparable. Now Mr Hooker is gone, he is the only one I have near me. I finish, my dear Madam, not because I am come to the end of my say, but because my paper is full. Believe me always, your obliged friend D.T.

[probably black wax, but removed]

Note on it:

Postage on this as Charged again. Mr Clarke 1s 11d