Sowerby Catalogue Volume I : page 487

Darwin’s Botanic garden. 8 ^vo.

1815 Catalogue, page 47. no. 13, as above.

DARWIN, Erasmus.

The Botanic Garden. A Poem, in two Parts. Part I. Containing the Economy of Vegetation. Part II. The Loves of the Plants. With philosophical notes. The First American Edition. New-York: Printed by T. & J. Swords, Printers to the Faculty of Physics at Columbia College, 1798.

PR3396. A7

8vo. 214 leaves: [ ] ⁴, a, b, B-Z, 2A-2K ⁴; [ ] ⁴, B-S ⁴, T ², plates; each part with a separate title-page, the last leaf has the errata list, and directions to the binder.

Evans 33600.

This edition not in Pritzel.

Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802, English physician, lived in Lichfield, where he had a botanical garden. The Economy of Vegetation was first published in 1792, and the Loves of the Plants in 1789. References to Immortal Franklin occur in the text and in the notes.

Elihu Hubbard Smith, 1771-1798, physician of Litchfield, Connecticut, was the editor of the American edition. He was one of the founders and an editor of the Medical Repository , and died of yellow fever during the epidemic of 1798.

[1072]

Synopsis Plantarum. Persoon. 2. v. 12 ^mo.

1815 Catalogue, page 48. no. 3, as above.

PERSOON, Christiaan Hendrik.

Synopsis Plantarum, seu Enchiridium Botanicum, complactens enumerationem systematicam specierum hucusque cognitarum. Curante Dr. C. H. Persoon, Diversarum Societatum Membro . . . Pars Prima [-Secunda]. Parisiis Lutetiorum: [ex Typographia J. L. Scherff] apud Carol. Frid. Cramerum, et Tubingae, apud J. G. Cottam, 1805-7.

QK92 .P4

First Edition. 2 vol. Sm. 8vo. (with horizontal wire-lines). Vol. I, 280 leaves; vol. II, 332 leaves; printer’s imprint on the verso of the last leaf; text printed in double columns. These volumes form part of the Collection d’Ouvrages Élémentaires sur differentes Sciences . . . Editeur, Ch. Fr. Cramer , with general half-title at the beginning.

Quérard VII, 77.

Bradley I, 259.

Pritzel 7062.

Jefferson’s copy was sent to him by the author through David Baillie Warden, the American consul in Paris, who wrote on December 21, 1807: “I have the honor of transmitting to you, by the request of Mr. Peerson, his Synopsis Plantarum, in two volumes, accompanied with a letter . . .”

Jefferson had not received it on May 1, 1808, on which day he wrote to Warden: “ . . . the copy of Peerson’s Synopsis plantarum will doubtless arrive with m( ^~ r) Sands, the bearer, of whom I have not heard yet . . .”

On June 12, Warden wrote to Jefferson from Paris: “. . . I sent you some works, at different times, the authors of which are anxious to hear of their arrival: viz. Peersons synopsis plantarum 2. vol. forwarded, in Dec ^r. last, by Mr. Sands in New York . . .”

Persoon himself wrote to Jefferson concerning this book from Paris on December 15, 1807, six days before the date of David Bailie Warden’s letter saying he was sending the book: “C’est comme à l’envi que les deux mondes s’empressent de vous faire hommage des productions de l’esprit et des arts qui tendent à illustrer la destinée de l’esprit humaine. “Permittez, Monsieur le Président, que je joigne mes foibles accens aux acclamations universeles qui vous decernent le titre de Protecteur des Lettres, en vous fesant offrande d’un exemplaire d’un ouvrage sur la Botanique qui semble devoir vous interesser comme savant et comme chef d’une grande Nation à qui rien échappe de ce qui peut aggrandir la comme du bonheur public.” Jefferson replied from Washington on July 15: I received safely through the good offices of mr Warden the copy of your Synopsis which you were so kind as to send me. For this elegant Manuel of all our Botanical knolege accept my thanks. I have lived and read long enough to set a just value on that precious style of composition which wastes none of our time with useless matter. the compactness too of the typography maintains with superior beauty the character of the work, and does honor even to the nineteenth century . . . (Both letters are in the Department of Research, Colonial Williamsburg.)

In October, 1810, Jefferson lent his copy to Benjamin Smith Barton, and after the sale of his library to Congress wrote for its return. On February 26, 1815, he wrote to Barton from Monticello: “ Congress having concluded to replace by my library the one which they lost by British Vandalism, it is now become their property and of course my duty to collect and put in place whatever stood in the Catalogue by which they purchased. this renders it necessary for me to request the return of Persoon’s Botanical work of which you asked the use some time ago. I am in hopes you will have been able to make it answer the purposes for which you wished it’s use. if well enveloped in strong paper it will come safely by mail . . . ””