From Dawson Turner to Ellen Hutchins   12 Feb 1814

I see, my dear Madam, by the papers that this snow has been as great or even a greater interruption to all communications in your part of the world than has been the case with us, & you therefore will not wonder that your last letter was considerably more than a week longer upon the road than it ought to have been. It has, however, I own it to my shame, been already ten days unanswered in my hands, a thing which I would have not believed possible to have happened had I been told so before it arrived, & which now really makes me doubt of the sincerity of that uneasiness, which continually tormented me before I received it; for the one which immediately preceded it was dated the 14^th December & was also written from your bed, the knowledge of which circumstances added to the very long delay interposed before it was followed by another, as made me feel apprehensions that I cannot be too grateful to have had removed. At the same time I really am vexed with myself for expressing these apprehensions, I am half inclined not to send the letter that contains them; for nothing would vex me more than the idea that for my sake you were led to exert yourself beyond your strength & possibly thus to bring on a catastrophe that I cannot too strongly deprecate. I really should be perfectly satisfied, & even better pleased, my dear & excellent friend, if, while you continue thus deplorably weak, you would altogether decline writing yourself, but interest yourself with your medical attendant to send me, regularly every week, half a dozen lines, merely to say the state of your health. I should thus have my anxiety removed without feeling that I was doing what might have an injurious tendency, &, if my letters can afford you anything like amusement, I would gladly promise them as often as you pleased. I am only sorry that I have not of late sent them more frequently, & I assure you I reproach myself on this account. Poor Dr Taylor left me on the 5^th January, but two days before the late dreadful weather set in. He wrote to Mr Hooker from London, whence it was his intention to prosecute his journey to Dublin without delay, but we had not heard a syllable of him since. I am not without anxiety on his account. Perhaps he is even now among the wilds & wildernesses of Wales. Bad news, according to the old proverb, flies apace, & therefore had anything fatal befallen him, I am persuaded we should have known it long before this. The Botany of this country has just had a sad loss in the death of George Don, who died suddenly of a putrid fever about 3 weeks ago, leaving a widow & 6 or 7 children in a state of miserable poverty. Our naturalists however will not be backward in shewing their respect to his memory by assisting his family. He was one of those extraordinary men who are produced by nature, as if to ridicule all our hard earned attainments, once in an age. Wholly self taught, or rather miserably ignorant, & unable either to spell or to write intelligibly, he was still, by the mere force of innate acuteness, one of the best of our native Botanists, & had made more additions than any man before him to the Flora of our Country. Most men, indeed say that the quarter part if not the whole of the discoveries of his were fictitious; but for myself I never could see how such a thing could be: for what he found were not plants generally collected, of which he might have got specimens from gardens; & we know he had no foreign correspondents & no herbarium to furnis[h hi]m with the plants he produced. Without a library either, even to refer to, & without the power of using one had he had it, he used to name plants as if instinctively: all this is passing strange. Mr Hooker, after a short respite, is now again going on with his Jungermanniae, & means to carry on the work with regularity to the end. I also say & intend the same with my Fuci, of which a No is already printed, to appear next month: but how I miss you who were to me my great assistance & to spur one forward by your exhortations & example! It was but 4 nights ago that I had the gratification of telling the world what I thought of you & what I owed to you while describing Fucus fruticulosus of which you yourself furnished me with the drawing. The approach of peace seems to make everything connected with Natural History or with Literature in general, alive. Lord Byron only is determined in this as in other matters to act in a manner opposite the rest of the world. He has just published a new & most beautiful little poem, called the Corsair & in the Preface he declares his intention to write no more for a long time to come. Should peace take place as soon as we all wish, I am in hopes of getting this summer to Paris or at least to Holland. How I should rejoice to have you for my companion on such an excursion with Mrs Turner & my two eldest girls! The great consideration will be what to do with the younger part of my family. Farewell, my dear madam, take all possible care, I intreat you, of yourself, & if not for your own sake, at least for that of your friends among whom never fail to reckon

Yours most truly & affectionately D T

12 February 1814