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 
day 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,! 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 
Kenilworth, 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 sdihcliaaiele afte yourself, and 
asked about all your family. .. . 
1 Peter Collinson, sia teied a London woolen draper, and a cor- 
respondent of Bartram, who was the earliest native-born American 
botanist. 
