at your leisure, and lett me know if I can any ways serve you; none being more than myself, with great esteem,

Your most obedient and most humble servt,

HANS SLOANE.

LETTER LXXXIX.

Dr. Richardson to Sir Hans Sloane.

HONOURED SIR,

NORTH BIERLEY, June 30th, 1725.

THE beginning of last week I received your letter, and, on Saturday after, your generous and obliging present of Lobel's Icones, and the two volumes of the Naturall History of Jamaica, for which I now return you my hearty thanks. By the little spare time I have had to inspect it since it came, I find it to be a very elaborate and curious performance, and worthy of so great an author. When I am a little more at liberty, I will carefully and with much pleasure read it over; and I do not doubt but it will answer my expectation. I am very sorry you have been so unhandsomely used by my old friend, the Consul. I heartily wish you had acquainted me with your desire of seeing Breynius's collection, before it was returned, or any

thing the Consul had; for, as I was interested in desiring the favour of you to communicate to him several curious collections of plants, in order to carry on more effectually his edition of Bauhinus's Pinax, which you very readily and freely complied with, common justice ought to have obliged him to promote your design with the same zeal and friendship you did his; and I must take it very ill from him. If the weather continue to be fair, I think of taking a tour into the North next week; and, if I meet with any thing worth communicating to you, at my return you may expect to hear from, Your much obliged servant,

RIC. RICHARDSON.

LETTER XC.

Dr. Richardson to Dr. Sherard.

DEAR SIR,

NORTH BIERLEY, November 5th, 1725.

I received yours of October 11th, which, as far as I can informe myselfe, was the day that Mr.Thoresby dyed. For some time before his death he had lost the use of his right side in a great measure, which disabled him from writing; and his distemper had so far affected his head that he was capable of very little business. His Museum re

mains still in the same state he left it. His eldest son (who is a clergyman, and preferred in the south by the Bishope of London) is not yet come into the country: 'tis believed that the Bishope of London wil have the disposall of his collection. The most valuable part of it is his medalls, which are chiefly Romane and Saxon, and a good collection of English coyns, and occasional medalls from the Conquest to this time. His bookes are alsoe valuable and prety numerouse; and indeed it is not to be wondered at, since the foundation of this collection was my Lord Fairfaxe's medalls and his library, which were purchased by Mr. Thoresby's father; to both which there has since been made considerable additions. If I can learn any certainty of the disposall of that collection, I wil acquaint you.

I shall be glad to see Langtoft's Chronicle, which Mr. Yarburgh wil take care to send me, and alsoe subscribe for John of Glastonbury's Chronicle, or any other booke you publish, for which he has my orders. I have met with nothing in antiquity lately worth communicating to you.-If in any thing I can serve you, you may be assured of a friend in,

Your's,

RIC. RICHARDSON.

LETTER XCI.

Dr. Richardson to Sir Hans Sloane.

HONOUR'D SIR,

NORTH BIERLEY, November 13th, 1725.

I hope you will pardon me that I did not write to you after my Scotch expedition, according to promise; but the season being so far advanced before I set out, and the weather not very favourable, I returned in a great measure re infectá. Only this advantage I received, that, apprehending some symptoms (which I have to my own experience formerly observed to precede a fitt of the gout,) as a dejected appetite, a weakness and inactivity in my limbs, with rheumatick twitching in several parts, though not very severe, I proposed to myselfe much advantage in that journey in relation to my health, which answered my expectation so wel, that I returned home in good health, and have continued so ever since. If I had been one month sooner in Scotland, I intended to have visited the Bass Island, so famous for the great numbers of sea-fowl that resort thither in breeding time, and to have made some observations upon them; but, that time being over, I layd aside all thoughts of that kinde. Another unfortunate accident happened to me, in relation to

severall Scotch plants, which I proposed to have brought back with me for my garden, (which Mr. Wood, who succeeds Mr. Preston in the PhysickGarden at Edinburgh, had promised to procure for me;) but he had been so much out of health for some weeks before I got thither, that he was not able to fetch one plant from any distant place. Those that were nigh at hand he had got together, as

Pyrola Alsines flore Europea. C. B.

Adiantum nigrum foliis Lunariæ minoris.2 D. Preston, R. Hist. III. 61.

Idem Scoticum majus Coriandri folio3-Sib. Prodr. Scot.

Idem minus folio obtuso altiùs inciso1-Sib. Prodr. Absinthium maritimum nostras.5 D. Preston, Hist. III. 231.

This I take only to be a variety of the maritimum, only more shrubby: the same I have formerly seen upon the bankes of the river Thames, nigh Green-Hith.

Upon the rocks of Edinbrough parke, Mr. Wood show'd me in abundance, in the same place, Adianthum Acrostichum, s. furcatum. Thal.

1 Trientalis Europea. L.

2 Probably a variety of Asplenium Trichomanes.

3 Asplenium marinum. ß L.

4 A variety of the preceding.

5 Artemisia maritima. L.

6 Asplenium septentrionale. Smith.