Monday1
In reference to the biographic notes, which you desire, dear Mr Shillinglaw, I would suggest that you should honor me with a call, when the exact extent of what seems needful may be fixed, and the form also. You can find me at home any day during day-hours and on Sundays during afternoons. Of course, you know that Sir John Franklin was a Shipmate of Flinders.2
Regardfully
Ferd von Mueller
I can lend you a woodcut of R Brown.3 Sir Rod. Murchison referred to me so gracefully in his annual adress at the RG.S. about 14 or 15 years ago; indeed it may have been earlier.4
Letter dated on the basis of a MS annotation, probably by Shillinglaw, '30 May 76', and the likelihood that the letter was posted the day before this. 29 May 1876 was a Monday.
Shillinglaw was working of a biography of Matthew Flinders, which, however, was never published (ADB).
A copy of R. Brown (1810) at MEL has a wood-cut of unknown provenance glued to the fly leaf.
Murchison in an address to the Royal Geographical Society on 23 May 1859 noted that 'Dr Mueller, on whose shoulders as an Australian botanist has fallen the mantle of Robert Brown, is continually issuing new works on the plants of the continent, whether those which he collected in tropical or northern Australia, when he was the companion of Gregory, or those of Victoria' (Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. 3 [1858-9], p. 342).
MS black-edged; M's brother-in-law, Eduard Wehl, died on 11 February 1876.
Please cite as “FVM-76-05-29,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on