Ixv 
West Park and Kew , 1841-1865. 
place to-day and three following days at Kensington, and I am 
happy to tell you that the botanical portion (600 volumes), 
herbarium, botanical drawings, &c., are excluded ; from which 
I can only infer that Lord Seymour has so far accepted 
my recommendation as either to have purchased them by 
private contract or to have arranged for their being kept back 
with a view to their being valued. Otherwise they were 
certainly to have been sold to-day, the books being all cata- 
logued and numbered for the purpose by the auctioneer. It 
is odd that Lord Seymour should not have written further to 
me; but with best desire to do everything he can for the 
advantage of the Garden, he seems to feel that he is put into 
the office to keep a jealous watch over all the officers, and to 
take care there is no jobbing.’ 
‘ Sept. 2. In spite of Lord Seymour’s refusing to purchase 
the books, &c., of the Aiton representatives, Mr. Atwell Smith 
has sent to me for the Garden Zoffany’s very fine portrait of 
old William Aiton, and sundry MS. books which ought never 
to have been removed from the Garden. Lord Seymour little 
knows he has to thank me and the attentions I was able to 
pay to Mr. Atwell Smith by attending the two Aitons’ 
funerals, &c. ; for these objects having come here at all. The 
picture is suspended in the Museum, and I am getting sixty 
of my large folio drawings (made for my Glasgow lectures) 
framed for the walls in the rooms now being added to the 
Museum.’ 
Referring to the above effects of the brothers Aiton, the 
books were sold, but the collection of drawings, which is of 
great value, was retained, and subsequently presented to Kew 
by Mr. Atwell Smith. 
In 1853 a house in Kew, in possession of the Queen, having 
become vacant through the death of its tenant (Sir George 
Quentin, Riding-master to the family of George III), Her 
Majesty was pleased to place it at the disposal of the Com- 
missioners of Works, to be in future the residence of the 
Director of the Botanic Gardens, in which it was situated. 
This was to my father a very great boon. He was in his 
