370 SECOND JOURNEY IN EUROPE. [1850, 



a half days and came near making it in fourteen, as 

 we made land early on the morning of the twelfth 

 clay out, no storms, but gentle favoring breezes till we 

 made the Irish coast ; and then, to our disappoint- 

 ment, we had head winds to beat against all the way 

 up to Holyhead, and reached Liverpool Saturday 

 morning. . . . 



On Monday we left Liverpool, which has vastly 

 improved since you saw it ; stopping at Coventry and 

 turning off to Leamington to see, at Darlington's de- 

 sire, the descendants of old Peter Collinson, 1 and 

 deliver some books and letters from him, which I did. 

 Mrs. Collinson was ill with a severe fall, but her 

 daughter received the things I brought, and showed 

 me a portrait of Peter. Then Mrs. Gray and I made 

 an excursion to Warwick Castle, the fine ruins of 

 Kenil worth, and Stoneleigh Abbey, driving through 

 six or seven miles of fine park. The next day on to 

 London, to Ward, who had insisted on our visiting 

 him. He lives three and a half miles out of London, 

 in a pleasant and quiet suburban house ; his son being 

 established in Wellclose Square. 



Boott I saw the same evening I arrived, and two 

 days later, with J., but not later. He has been 

 quite sick with an influenza, and a slight but not 

 altogether pleasant inflammation of the lungs. 



To Hooker I went at once also, and got your kind 

 letter there, and saw Kew. Hooker is quite well ; 

 but Lady H. is very poorly. . . . She inquired most 

 particularly and affectionately after yourself, and 

 asked about all your family. . . . 



1 Peter Collinson, 1674-1768 ; a London woolen draper, and a cor- 

 respondent of Bartram, who was the earliest native-born American 

 botanist. 



