LETTER CCXIV. Dr. J. JOHNSTONE to Dr. LETTSOM. Worcester, Dec. 4, 1790. Among many other favours, for which I am greatly obliged to your friendship, I am highly pleased by your letting me know the Countess of Huntingdon's kind recollections of her country physician; and you will greatly oblige me in mentioning the high esteem and duty I have for the excellent lady, and that I feel much concerned to hear the increase of bodily infirmities in one who possesses such mental worth. such mental worth. I ask for the interest of her prayers, and desire also to be kindly and respectfully remembered to Lady Ann Erskine. I assure you the sending this message, and fearing you might not long have the opportunity of delivering it, has accelerated my answer, otherwise too long delayed. Your remark on the caution of Dr. Fothergill's practice*, I dare say has much justice in it. Qur minds are certainly formed, or, at least, moulded, by habits. A man bred and living in a society, dis * See Lettsom's Life of Dr. Fothergill. ED. tinguished by the wisdom and correctness of manners which characterize the individuals belonging to it, would naturally enough, in the tender, nice interests of human life, be generally disposed to measures which were seldom hazardous: I think, however, his medical conduct displays an excellent exemplification of a sound common sense and elegance of mind; which, if rarely united with great boldness, is equally distant from creeping servile timidity, LETTER CCXV. From the same. Dear Doctor, J. J. Worcester, Dec. 3, 1794. I received your very friendly presents and letter; both the one and the other make me wish to visit your family and place. Sir W. Temple says there are few objects which are not attainable. You have obtained your wished-for situation by means which seldom fail— industry, prudence, and talents, united to perse verance. The description you give me of your son's disposition and virtues, warms my heart on his account as well as yours. I hope you will long live to en joy the prospect which opens to you, as the root of an amiable and worthy progeny, springing from you, and perpetuating your memory; with the otium cum dignitate. I am very glad the worthy and amiable youth, who gives your parental heart such a glow of satisfaction, is to be married to a person which promises mutual happiness to the wedded pair. We never think our scheme of parental solicitude properly terminated, till our children are suitably settled in marriage; that is the great epoch of parental providence; and when it is wisely, as well as happily brought about, all that depends on us, to secure the fortunes, the virtues, and happiness of our posterity, is done. You say, with much truth, though I feel you honour me in the remark, that our sentiments and pursuits have much resemblance. I, too, have children, who are the source of much comfort to me, and very likely to be useful in the world, if no such misfortune befall me, as to lose them, as I did my eldest son; who, like Howard, dived into dungeons, but, less fortunate than him, was infected there with the poison which laid him, in the 30th year of his age, in the grave. Pray tell your unknown family that I love them, because I love my friend; and Yours I am, very sincerely, LETTER CCXVI. R. A. MARKHAM, Esq. to Dr. LETTSOM. Leeds, Nov. 28, 1783. I take the liberty of addressing Dr. Lettsom, though I have not the honour of his personal acquaintance. Having just received the first two volumes of the late Dr. Fothergill's Works, along with his Life separate, I find, among other papers we are to be favoured with in the third volume, what has long been wished for, an Hortus Uptonensis, but am extremely sorry it is not to include the hardy plants and shrubs cultivated at Upton. A great many of them are, I believe, still growing there. If the work is not yet gone to the press, and he thinks it worth while to render his Hortus any further complete, I have a catalogue of a large number which I saw growing there previous to the sale, and which shall be much at his service. Indeed, had not an Hortus Uptonensis from Dr. Lettsom appeared, I should myself have published an Hortus Fothergilli; thinking it a great shame to the Tankervilles, Coventrys, Pitcairns, and Gordons of the present age, that the memory of so princely a collection should be lost. I should have arranged the hardy plants along with those contained in the sale catalogues, after the system of Linnæus, and have put down the places they were usually kept in at Upton, and the countries where most of the rare ones are indigenous, either from my own authority, or that of Dr. Fothergill himself, in his letters to his friend Dr. Hird of this place, in whom I lost a most intimate and valued friend. Dr. Hird himself had of late years begun to cultivate many exotics, at a sweet romantic spot in this neighbourhood: the most valuable of them came from Upton, and they are now in my collection; in particular an Arbutus Andrachne, which will soon, in point of size and beauty, I think, exceed any thing in the kingdom; it has now a single straight stem for near six feet before it branches out; and this last year shot out a principal one, two feet longer, with numerous side branches. This I attribute solely to the soil in which it is planted, which consists entirely almost of bog earth. If Dr. Lettsom's business in town ever permits him to come into Yorkshire, I shall think myself extremely happy in shewing him my stoves at Allerton; when the whole range is finished, I shall have three divisions for different degrees of heat, each of them a hundred feet in length. I should be equally glad to communicate seeds and plants of any that I may have duplicates of in my collection, and that Dr. Lettsom may think worth adding to his. A Massonia latifolia is in full flower with me just now, and I am not without hopes of succeeding in getting some seeds from it. I have this morning been acting the part of a bee to it, by drawing out, with a fine pipe, |