
          Still, I must do so conscientiously, & I know
 myself too well not to be aware that I must
 not be coquetting with dame Nature, if I would
 make a good man of business. In the Evening,
 I have neither sufficient light, nor leisure, &
 the mornings are now not, fairly, my own.
 I have not even had a talk with [Francis] Boott about
 Carices! [Carex] Neither have I been to Kew, nor to
 the Zoolog'l [Zoological] Gardens, tho' I hope to do both, if
 I live until the Summer. I met [probably John Edward] Gray, the
 Botanist, at a dinner Party-- he gave me a 
 history of all my old friends, & pressed upon
 me a reading ticket for the Brit. [British] Museum
 which is within a stone's throw of my residence,
 & a very beutiful building, but
 this, also, I decline for the present. Gray
 is now an officer of the B. Museum. I have
 not seen [probably Robert] Brown, but Stokes-- who is of our
 calling, a Stock-broker-- tells me is very well. 
 Stokes, himself, is very inform, I see him very
 often in the Stock Exchange, & he spends many
 of his Evenings at Boott's, I hear.


 I have become acquainted with a Son
 of the distinguished & veteran M.P.
 Joseph Hume, who tells me that he expects
        