Transcript
Wednesday 5 PM*1
My dear Father*2
I have this moment received your letter & have no time to say more than that I accept the Edinburgh appointment.
I should have written you yesterday but have been occupied writing explanations of that announcement from the Gardeners' Chronicle wh[ich] has given great disgust here. The French have been civil enough not to show their feelings on the subject but I have heard of it from Decaisne[,]*3 Webb*4 & Lasegue.*5 All here are extremely kind. I am now going to dine with Humboldt*6 who is going to write to you. I will write Brown*7 tonight.
Ever your affection[ate] | Jos D Hooker [signature]
Wednesday 5 PM*1
My dear Father*2
I have this moment received your letter & have no time to say more than that I accept the Edinburgh appointment.
I should have written you yesterday but have been occupied writing explanations of that announcement from the Gardeners' Chronicle wh[ich] has given great disgust here. The French have been civil enough not to show their feelings on the subject but I have heard of it from Decaisne[,]*3 Webb*4 & Lasegue.*5 All here are extremely kind. I am now going to dine with Humboldt*6 who is going to write to you. I will write Brown*7 tonight.
Ever your affection[ate] | Jos D Hooker [signature]
1. 5th Feb[ruar]y has been hand written under the original date.
2. Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785--1865). English systematic botanist and botanical illustrator. He held the posts of Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow University and became the first official Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1841.
3. Joseph Decaisne (1807--1882). French botanist and agronomist who followed Mirbel as the chair of horticulture at the Jardin des Plantes.
4. Philip Barker-Webb (1793--1854). English botanist living in Paris where he wrote Histoire Naturelle des Iles Canaries, co-authored with Sabin Berthelot.
5. Antoine Lasègue (1793--1873). French physician and botanist, curator of the botanical collections of Benjamin Delessert.
6. Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769--1859). Explorer and naturalist who did most of his work in Central and South America. Between 1830--1848 he was often employed on diplomatic missions to Paris.
7. Robert Brown (1773--1853). Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist, a pioneer in the use of the microscope. He had recommended Hooker for a series of lectures to be given at Edinburgh University.
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