
          admiration - I mean, Prof. DeCandolle.  If you did, I
 should be much pleased to learn such particulars
 of him as would verify, or correct, the idea that one
 always forms of eminent men.  I know not what
 his age may be; but I began to be apprehensive
 that neither he, nor I, will live to see his Prodromus
 completed.  Have you any information relative to
 the 5th vol. or part, when it will be likely to appear?
 I have been waiting with great impatience to see what
 he has done with the immense order of Compositae.
 By the way, I fear he, & his co-[adjustors?] are getting a little
 too lax in allowing species to be multiplied - & perhaps
 a little too free, also in subdividing genera. But of 
 this, it [becomes?] me to speak with great [difference?].
 My opportunities of judging are too limited, to warrant
 a confident expression of opinion, in such matters. -
 I was rather amused at your mistake, in supposing
 that I had got into" the vortex of Politics".  It is true
 I consented to attend a political convention, in this
 state, at the urgent request of my neighbors, who nominated
 me as a delegate, last spring: but I do assure you
 there is scarcely a subject can be mentioned, so little
 congenial to my taste, as party politics have been for
 some years past; and I may add that for the political
 spirit which now prevails in many sections & threatens to pervade
 the whole country, I entertain a perfect abhorrence.
 So far from plunging into the vortex of such a disgusting
 controversy, - it is, & will be, my special study
 to keep myself aloof from it.  I would not willingly
 exchange the humble pleasures attending the investiga-
 tion of a Chester County plant, for all the noisy [eclat?]
 enjoyed by political partizans.  I have known enough of both,
 to satisfy me which is the purest, & most enduring source of gratification.

        