West Park and Kew, 1841-1865. xllx 
Long before the issue of Dr. Lindley’s Report to the 
Treasury the Duke, who knew the Gardens well, had enter- 
tained the hope that they might one day become the nucleus 
of a botanical establishment worthy of the nation ; and in 1834, 
on an (unfounded) rumour of coming changes in their manage- 
ment being circulated, he warmly impressed upon his most 
influential friends my father’s claims to be employed in them. 
When, therefore, in 1838, Dr. Lindley’s Report came to his 
knowledge he wrote to my father expressing his satisfaction 
with it, entirely agreeing in its recommendations, and adding : 
* though the outlay of restoring the Gardens to their original 
design and intention must of course be considerable, he should 
nevertheless think that no House of Commons would refuse 
a grant for an object so important in a national point of view.’ 
In a letter dated Geneva, March 24, he writes : c I look with 
hope and confident expectation to the prospect of seeing Kew 
Gardens and the whole of the surrounding demesne converted 
into a great national establishment, which may not only rival 
but be superior to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. I have 
written to some influential friends to interest them in the 
subject.’ And in another letter, alluding to his being solicited 
to patronize the establishment of a Garden in London, he 
says : { I have uniformly refused, thinking that it would inter- 
fere with the more important plan of a great National Botanic 
Garden at Kew. I do not know if you are acquainted with 
the locale, but there is a large space behind the present 
Garden, now occupied as an unprofitable lawn and useless 
pasture, which is capable of being converted into a range of 
Gardens more useful as well as more ornamental than those 
of Paris.’ 
The Duke continued his efforts to induce the Government 
to give effect to the recommendations of the Report till within 
four days of his death 1 . This occurred on October 20, 1839, 
systematically arranged and described by James Forbes, with sixty-seven coloured 
plates, roy. 8vo, 1839. In my father’s collected correspondence there are 200 
letters from the Duke almost exclusively on botanical subjects. 
1 His last letter to my father, written on October 16, the day before he was 
