Johan Frederik Gronovius to Linnaeus
Leiden, 19 October 1735
Hodie mane traditas mihi literas vestras summo cum gaudio perlegi et quae communicasti de Flora Lapponica, bene percepi: neque velim ut in posterum Te opponas Domino Burmanno vel cuiquam alij: imprimat Schouten Floram vestram et corrigat Amstelodamensis, quisquis ille sit, tamen egregie deformata erit vitiis. Non est uniuscujusque corrigere[a] librum Botanicum. Ergo non amplius de Flora Lapponica hic Lugduni Batavorum imprimenda cogites.
Iam altera pars Tabulae Botanicae[1] est nitidissime impressa, adeo ut nullum possis detegere vitium Typographicum. Sed ante octo dies tristissimus cum ea acciderat casus: nam cum Typographus[2] vellet instrumentum istud ferreum quod literas plumbeas comprehendit, tabulae impressoriae imponere literae omnes decidebant; adeo ut de novo tabulam debuerit reponere: eadem de causa debuit desistere de curando regno animali, quod crastino die in animo habet.
Heri accepi literas ex Anglia a D[omino] Bedfort, qui plantas Micheli ad me detulerat. Tradideram quoque ei tabulas tunc temporis impressas, quas ipse D[omino] Mead examinandas dedit, dein D[omino] Cole, quem ignoro. Uterque tamen exultabat et gaudebat. D[omino] Richardson[b] etiam ostendet. Miller eas nunc tenet, ea conditione ut ostendat Domino Sloane et mecum sententiam ejus communicet, quod proxima hebdomade pollicetur.
Quo magis perlego characteres vestros Generum, eo magis mihi placent, et admodum necessaria ea censeo ad intelligendum Systema Sexuale.[3] Vellem ea nitide descripta esse, tunc statim imprimerem. Vellem enim unam vel alteram phyliram generum esse impressam cum Regnum Animale ad finem perductum erit, ut possim eodem tempore in Angliam mittere. Occurrit quoque hic Bibliopola,[4] qui ea vellet imprimere modo, charta et charactere quem desiderarem, si modo 130 exemplaria essent subscripta, pro quorum singulo triginta[c] vel[d] et quadraginta stuferi[e] solverentur. Ego ipse pro viginti exemplaribus fidem dedi, dein hac in urbe conquisivi amicos qui triginta exemplaria desiderant. Unde scripsi ad Burmannum, si ille posset comparare quosdam qui inter se 80 exemplaria vellent suscipere, quod statim hic sub cura mea imprimeretur. Sed si hoc non procedat, ego ipse propriis sumptibus curabo. Post alterum diem inchoabo quaedam cum Venia Vestra in Generibus mutare, quoad Latinitatem, eaque dein tibi consideranda offeram. Ipse fateor me deceptum in istis generibus quoad[f] novas lineas, quae sane valde necessariae sunt. Verum numeri isti debent verbis exprimi et nullae abbreviationes verborum debent admitti.
De Ranis Domini Sebae sententiam Vestram probe intelligo.[5]
Nolles credere quam elegantes plantas acceperim ex Virginia;[6] magnam partem chartis agglutinavi, quasdam vero intactas relinquam usque dum hic eris cum prima pars Regni Animalis erit impressum, ut eas possis examinare; videntur enim nova genera. Plurima quoque in duplo habeo pro Nobilissimo Cliffortio, quem meo nomine salutes et has litteras perlegendas tradas. Semina quoque quaedam pro Dom[ino] Cliffortio habeo, sed tempus mihi deest ea colligendi, quod media hieme magis supererit.[7] Vellem tamen scire an in viridario suo habeat Cassinen, de hac enim satis bona semina ad me missa sunt.
Perlegendo Systema Sexuale excerpsi in adjuncta charta quaedam genera quae vellem scire an et ubi sint descripta, et ubi ea vidisti, et cujus Regionis sint incolae.
Unicam adhuc movebo quaestionem quam quaeso cum Dom[ino] Cliffortio rite perpendas. In Paradoxis castigas binis locis D[ominum] Sebam, et quidem jure et merito. Scire debes quod si Angliam petere velles, quod favor D[omini] Sloane et Miller tibi summopere necessarius sit. Illi duo maxime amant Dominum Sebam, quin imo venerantur.[8] Si nunc in Te contrahas inimicitiam Domini Sebae, debes esse certus quod in Anglia male audibis, quod libenter vellem evitare, praesertim quum magna mihi spes sit Te membrum Societatis electurum iri [sic], quamprimum Londini perveneris. Ergo ista paradoxa[g] quae tangunt Dominum Sebam et reliqua (licet sint valde docta et egregia) in hac Tabula negligerem ac in aliud tempus reservarem.[9] Nam certe eadem tangerent Dom[inum] Sloane quam maxime. Neque dubito quin Nobiliss[imus] Dom[inus] Cliffort in eadem sit sententia, quem meo nomine salutare non dedigneris. Martyni nova decas plantarum sub praelo sudat;[10] Iter Orientale Kempferi nunquam quoque procedet.[11]
Vale vir Doctissime et Tuis annumera
Joh[annem] Fred[ericum] Gronovium.
Heri has misissem, sed nescio quid in causa fuerit quod obliviscerer.
Lugd[uni] Bat[avorum], 19 Oct[obris] 1735.
Mitto hic duo exemplaria Regni Vegetabilis, ut unum inserviat D[omin]o Cliffort, alterum vero Tibi.
[address] A Mons[ieu]r Linnaeus
SUMMARY
Johan Frederik Gronovius has understood Linnaeus’s message about Flora Lapponica and abandons his initial plan to have the work printed and proofread in Leiden, even though he predicts it will not be well produced in Amsterdam.
Despite an accident which happened to the forme of type a week ago, the second part of “Regnum vegetabile” has been well printed. The accident has forced the printer to postpone the printing of “Regnum animale” to the following day.
Gronovius has sent a copy of the tables of the Systema naturae which have already been printed to John Russell, Duke of Bedford, in England. Bedford has passed the tables to Richard Mead and William Cole, who have read them with delight. They will also be presented to Richard Richardson. Philip Miller has them now in his possession; he will show them to Hans Sloane and pass on his opinion to Gronovius.
Gronovius is very pleased with Linnaeus’s description of genera, which he considers indispensable for understanding the Systema naturae properly. Gronovius would like to send one or two sheets of the genera to England together with the Systema naturae. Furthermore, he has found a bookseller who is prepared to print the Genera plantarum according to Gronovius’s wishes, on condition that 130 subscribers can be found. As a result, Gronovius is trying hard to find enough subscribers. If necessary, however, he will have the work published at his own expense. In two days Gronovius will start making some changes to the Latin of the text. Having received some new lines to be inserted in the description of genera, Gronovius reminds Linnaeus of the fact that numbers should be expressed in words and abbreviations of words should be avoided.
Gronovius understands Linnaeus’s remark about Albert Seba’s frogs perfectly.
Gronovius is delighted with the plants he has received from Virginia, most of which have already been glued onto sheets. Some plants, however, seem to constitute new genera and have been left intact so as to give Linnaeus the opportunity of examining them. Gronovius will send George Clifford various duplicates, as well as some seeds.
Reading through the Systema naturae, Gronovius has selected some genera of plants. He wants to know whether they have been described, if so where, where Linnaeus has seen them, and in which region they grow.
In his discussion of monsters, Linnaeus has corrected Seba twice, and deservedly so. Yet Gronovius strongly advises his friend to delete these passages altogether. Seba is held in high esteem in England, among others by Sloane and Miller. It would therefore be unwise to antagonise him, especially since Gronovius has every hope that Linnaeus will be elected a fellow of the Royal Society as soon as he arrives in London.
Gronovius informs Linnaeus that a new decade of John Martyn’s Historia plantarum rariorum is in the press and that Engelbert Kämpfer’s Iter Orientale will also appear.
For some reason or other, Gronovius forgot to send this letter the day before. In a postscript he points out that he has included two copies of “Regnum vegetabile”, one copy of which is intended for Clifford, the other for Linnaeus himself.
MANUSCRIPTS
1. holograph (L.S., V, 371-372a).
[a] MS1 <imp> corrigere [Gronovius started to write “imprimere”, but changed his mind]
[b] MS1 Ridcharson
[c] MS1 <intra> triginta
[d] MS1 [added above the line]
[e] MS1 stuferno
[f] MS1 <quod> quoad
[g] MS1 paradoxa <et reliqu>
NOTES
[1] See Gronovius to Linnaeus, 12 October 1735.
[2] Johan Wilhelm de Groot.
[3] What Gronovius has in mind is not Linnaeus’s botanical sexual system as it is explained in the “Clavis systematis sexualis”, but rather the Syst. nat. as such. This can be inferred from one of the following paragraphs which reads “Perlegendo Systema Sexuale excerpsi in adjuncta charta quaedam genera quae vellem scire etc.”.
[4] Gen. pl. would be published in Leiden by Conradus Wishoff in 1737.
[5] See Gronovius to Linnaeus, 12 October 1735.
[6] See Gronovius to Linnaeus, 2 October, 8 October and 12 October 1735.
[7] In fact, the seeds and plants from Virginia would not be arranged until November 1736. See Gronovius to Linnaeus, 27 November 1736.
[8] Albert Seba was a good friend and correspondent of Hans Sloane, as can be seen from Scott, Index to the Sloane manuscripts in the British museum, s.v. “Seba, Albertus”. For the connections between the Dutch naturalist circles and Philip Miller, see Le Rougetel, The Chelsea gardener, 48-56.
[9] This is a reference to Linnaeus’s discussion of monsters in the “Regnum animale”, which in the printed text appears after the class of amphibians and before the class of fishes. In the printed version, any allusion to Seba has been omitted.
[10] A reference to decades 2-5 of Martyn’s Historia plantarum rariorum, which were not printed until 1737; the first decade was issued in London in 1728. The information was probably sent to Gronovius by Miller, who was one of Martyn’s chief botanical correspondents. See DNB, XII, 1202-1204. For Martyn and his relationship to Miller, see also Le Rougetel, The Chelsea gardener, 144-146.
[11] When Engelbert Kämpfer died in 1716, he had only published the Amoenitatum exoticarum [...] fasciculi quinti. Kämpfer left a number of manuscripts, which were subsequently purchased by Sloane. He arranged for the publication of the History of Japan and Siam, which appeared in an English translation in 1727. In this letter Gronovius seems to refer to Kämpfer’s diaries, which contain a rich account of his travels to Persia and Japan, Iter Orientale. It seems reasonable to infer from Gronovius’s letter that the publication of Kämpfer’s diaries was taken into consideration or at least foreseen as early as 1735. This is confirmed by a letter written by Johann Amman on 12 April 1735 in which he asks Sloane whether Kämpfer’s itinerary has already been published: “Prodiitne Itinerarium Kempferi?” (B.L., Sloane MS. 4054, f. 33a).