From James Scott Bowerbank   3 February 1852

My Dear Sir

I only wish I could have done you a better service than setting you right on such a trifle as the Nux vom. I have not forgotten the well timed & kindly manner in which you set me right regarding the Leech cocoons years since and you were then a stranger to me which greatly enhanced the value of your kindness in my estimation. You may smile at my keen recollection of an act that I know was a mere matter of course to you, but the truth is amid the selfish struggles of London Scientific men for fame I have seen so little of kindly feeling that I prize it all the more highly when I do meet with it in a kindly & disinterested form.

I hope the waste prints sent will be of service[.] I have no waste prints of the Fossil Prints but I pray you to accept for yourself & the Museum the two copies sent.

In respect to the Grant affair, I must say that I feel exceedingly anxious to succeed. The Doctor[’]s merits are not sufficiently known, had he been more of a Courtier & less high minded & disinterested he would have been in a very different position to that which he now occupies. The great aim of this movement is to bring him forwards so prominently as ultimately to get him a Government pension to somewhat secure his old age from actual poverty

I remain | My Dear Sir | yours most truly | J. S. Bowerbank