From Dawson Turner to Ellen Hutchins   16 Sep 1811

You are so kind, my dear Madam, as to express your regret that I have not undertaken to give figures of all the submersed alga, instead of confining myself to the Fuci alone. Alas, it is your partiality towards me that blinds your better judgement. See what I do, judge from that what I should do, were I to attempt more. Two months have already elapsed without a No of my Fuci & a third must do so likewise, though I am already so near that dear FINIS; so that though, as is assuredly the case, I should never be satisfied with publishing figures like those of my friend, Dillwyn, yet there seems by far more reasons than there should be to believe that I should publish none at all, & to use a common proverb among us, half a loaf is better than no bread. Mrs T xxx absence in the country & her previous illness making my home less agreeable than formerly has thrown me more into masculine society, which is the bane of xxxxxx especially to one who like me, is ?elevxx xxxxxxx four glasses of wine & I must forthwith either give over visiting or abridge my attention to business unless I will consent to relinquish all the sources of my greatest happiness. On this account I cannot but envy your mountainous situation, though I fear my mind is too much perverted by the luxurious care of a town ever to enjoy retirement as I at one period could have done. I am concerned at the account you give me, both of yourself & Mrs Hutchins. Youth, happily, soon recovers from illness, but we cannot flatter ourselves that such will be the case with age, & for this account, perhaps only for this, I sincerely pity you are living in the country remote from all medical assistance. If my letters, such as they are, can afford you the slightest amusement you shall be sure to receive plenty of them, and never think it necessary to make me any answer in return except a few words now & then to tell me how you are, the debarring us from knowing which would be really painful. Seeing how little botanical news I have nowadays to send you, I heartily wish for your sake I was possessed of the epistolary powers of Cowper, who appears to me in this respect to leave far behind him all his predecessors and to have done an essential service to this country, by proving our equality to the French in a point in which they were always before ad [word missing] had by far the advantage. There is a some [words missing] language peculiarly adapted to subjects of [words missing] with all this & with the exquisite taste and delightful [ ]ing of Madame de Sévigné, I must own she soon [word missing] me, while I could read for ever the simple xxxxx of the good unsophisticated heart & playful fancy of Cowper I love to & honour the man who so constantly refers every good to his Beneficent Creator unlike the French philosophers who seem to think it a shame to mention His name though as often as they took their pen in their hands they could not fail to feel, as I do at this moment, that it was not their mere hands but a power superior to them, & xxxxxxx with them, & of which they have no idea, that enables them to move it.

Mrs T is still in the country enjoying herself in a cessation of care, and recovering her strength. Ellen and my other two youngest are with me. They have just this moment passed through the Bank where I am writing and been holding up their dolls to me with no little triumph. Your little namesake grows & thrives & the nurse would fain persuade me she can already keep her head upright but nurses in these matters are gifted with foresight. I shall rejoice when she first gets teeth, which is a great epoch. It pleases me extremely to find that the reading of the life of Tasso has not disappointed the expectations I had led you to form of it. It is a book I always take up with fresh pleasure not because I hold much interest in the subject but because the reflections of the author appear to me so sound and accurate. The preface in particular I think a piece of very fine writing. Did you ever meet with Linnaeus xxxx written xxxxx xxxx would you be able if you had it to read it? Being all in Latin? I shouldn’t ?dare to put this question to you so abruptly were you by my side, but distance must plead my excuse. I hope you will oblige me by answering it, and, I trust in the affirmative as to the latter part; for I know no book so calculated to afford a mind like yours infinite delight and I will beg to be allowed the gratification of sending it to you forthwith.

I am quite vexed I can nowhere lay my hands upon a morsel of Hypnum rufescens. I certainly have aplenty and soon shall find it, but till then I am vexed to say I must keep you waiting. Have you got at present the specimens of Jungermanniae from me, and the plates from Mr Hooker? You speak feelingly of poor Tasso’s acute sensibility – do you know Warton’s Ode, the Suicide? If not, I will send it in a frank — it is short — The two following stanzas from it always were to me singularly touching and beautiful: then in a similar [paper missing] Roscoe’s Ode on Burns whose works I am particularly fond of.

"Is this," mistaken Scorn will cry,

"Is this the youth, whose genius high

Could build the genuine rime?

Whose bosom mild the favouring Muse

Had stor'd with all her ample views,

Parent of fairest deeds, and purposes sublime?"

Ah! from the Muse that bosom mild

By treacherous magic was beguil'd,

To strike the deathful blow:

She fill'd his soft ingenuous mind

With many a feeling too refin'd,

And rous'd to livelier pangs his wakeful sense of woe.

See, my dear Madam, with my great alarm I have scarcely left myself room to tell you I should be glad of a snippet of F. cristatas & particularly so of a drawing of F. fruticulosus in different states for my work. You are to send me too all your Jungermanniae.

Thus to go last I am a beggar. It is my ruling passion yet I am not unmindful of your kindness or indeed of your valuing your friend. D. T.