From Dawson Turner to Ellen Hutchins   8 Oct 1811

Black wax. frank by T S Gooch

Yarmouth 8th October 1811

My dear Madam

I was so fortunate as to meet yesterday with the member for Suffolk upon our Bench of Magistrates, at the ?Licarton Sessions, & I gladly availed myself of the opportunity to procure for you the frank, on which I am now writing, & by favour of which I mean to send you Warton’s Poem of the Suicide, & a strange sort of translation, or rather low imitation, of one of Horace’s most beautiful odes by a partner of mine, written in a vile hobbling measure, which perhaps, he will take measurable care never to write again, but still containing, if I am not misled by partiality, some splendid & most impressive passages. This same partner of mine published a few years ago a short poem, that I should be very glad to have an opportunity of sending you, a translation of Apuleius’ story of Cupid and Psyche, so unlike that by your late beautiful countrywoman* that it is impossible to compare them. One of his stanzas, where Psyche led by her curiosity, sees Cupid naked in the bed, appears to me singularly happy & as singularly just; for all preceding authors had represented the god as a mere child, & have painted him so, even tho’ he was then married. My friend says

“Not such a young and frolic child,

“As poets feign, or sculptors plan;

“No, no, she sees, with transport wild,

“Eternal beauty veil’d in man.”

I had two days ago the pleasure of receiving your letter & hearing by it that my fears respecting your health were all groundless. It made my feel myself the more vexed & ashamed at the querulous style of that which I had just before sent you; but I trust you will pardon me. I hope I shall be able, before this goes, to tell you whether the Conferva you enclosed (your No. 80) is really C. ?fibiata. It is now ?terrible light, so that I cannot examine it, & almost all my days since I had your letter have been taken up with my duty as a Magistrate, which, happily, gives me very little trouble, except just at the times of the Sessions. I have sent Mr Hooker word that you have not yet received his Engravings, & I trust he will make enquiry about them, so as to insure their reaching xxxxx at one time or another. There was in the parcel a copy of a paper on Andrea, &, I think, another of Mr Brown’s paper on Dawsonia, both which I am very desirous you should have. I need not trespass upon your liberality for your specimen of the lateral fruit of Conf. elongata; for I have it already; but if you would at some future time allow me to ask you for a drawing of it, I should be very much obliged to you. It is a plant that comes so near to F.?subfuscus that xxxxx cannot possibly be separated into different genera, & I think the fructification of the tribe is as well ?marked in it as in any other individual. Pray tell me how the Moss which you sent with the Pinguicula & which I took for Bryum alpinum, differs from that plant. They appear to me to be the same, but I know by long experience that nobody ought to pretend to judge about the Mosses except those who see them actually growing. I am quite pleased that Tasso’s Life continues to be a favourite with you in your leisure hours. It is greatly so with me, & I entirely agree with you in opinion as to the good style of the book, & of soundness & depth of the remarks it abounds with. Surely you cannot but be enamoured with Italian poetry. I send you Hypnum rufescens, & morsels of the only 3 British Lepraria that are likely to be new to you, or desiderata in your collection. I think all the others are sufficiently common & well known. You must not be surprised if this genus should actually be finished printing before next I write to you; for Mr Borrer & I are much disposed to publish the little we have done preferring that even a ?Mouse should be the fruit of our labours, rather than they should be absolutely abortive. Mr Hooker has just sent me a most interesting account of the past winter in Iceland, which was severe there beyond what ever was known, & such quantities of ice were driven to the coast that even during the whole of this summer the natives of the shores have not been able to see the sea, except in particular [paper missing] the ship from which he got the intelligence xxxxx, two new volcanoes had just broken out, & were xxxing up fire, smoke & ashes to a considerable height xxx ?towed ?the/their vessel continued in sight. Did I ever tell you that Mr Konig* spent this summer in Guernsey and Jersey in the search of rare Minerals & plants, in which he was sadly disappointed, but he gave me a curious piece of information that Teucrium scorodonia is the most abundant of their vegetables & is constantly used in making their beer instead of hops, & Mr Konig says the beverage is excellent. My family, including Little Ellen, are now all quite well. Mrs Turner desires her best respects to you, & the family at Ballylickey. I always am, my dear Madam, your much obliged friend D Turner.

* Mary Tighe (1772–1810) Psyche, or the Legend of Love re-published in 1811 by Longman, London

* Charles Konig (1774 - 1851) a German naturalist who in 1811 was assistant keeper of the department of natural history at the British Museum.