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very earliest opportunity to return you my most 

 sincere thanks for it. You have given me a great 

 deal of botanical information, and some useful 

 hints, by which it will be my own fault if I do not 

 profit : but what I prize far more than them, is the 

 kind, friendly, and affectionate manner in which you 

 have throughout expressed yourself. I hope I shall 

 continue to deserve your good-will and your friend- 

 ship, with which I assure you I cannot but feel my- 

 self honoured. 



I shall now go on to answer your kind inquiries 

 about my proposed Species Plantarum. It will 

 neither come under the denomination of a transla- 

 tion of De Candolle's Prodromus, nor can the greater 

 portion of it pretend to the title of originality : the 

 very nature of the undertaking would forbid this. 



I have De Candolle's full permission to translate 

 and copy whatever I choose from him ; and his 

 work (because it will be the most complete,) is what 

 I shall follow in the general arrangement and cha- 

 racter, especially of the orders and genera. Here, 

 however, I shall make alterations when I may see fit ; 

 and with regard to species, I shall, whenever I can 

 have access to a good specimen, draw up the cha- 

 racter myself ; when I cannot, I shall copy (but never 

 without acknowledgement,) from others. Here, 

 again, I shall often be obliged to copy De Candolle's 

 characters, because his are drawn up with reference 

 to all the other species of the genus. The species 

 (presumed ones, I mean,) I shall reduce whenever I 

 have materials to enable me to do so ; and this is 



