OLD ESSEX GARDENERS AND THEIR GARDENS. 97
As we have seen Fothergill had interested himself in John
Bartram's son William. In October, 1772, he mentions having
received some drawings and says he should be glad to receive
"the like of any new plant or animal that occurs to thee. If
"it was possible to be a little more exact in the parts of fructi-
"fication, and where these are very diminutive, to have them
"drawn a little magnified, I should be pleased; and at the same
"time if the plants, or seeds of such curious plants, could be
"collected and sent hither, it would be very acceptable." He
further says he will be glad "to contribute to thy assistance, in
"collecting the plants of Florida," but he adds "I am not so far
"a systematic botanist, as to wish to have in my garden all the
"grasses, or other less observable, humble plants, that nature
"produces. The useful, the beautiful, the singular, or the
"fragrant, are to us the most material. Yet despise not the
"meanest." William Bartram set out on his journey to Florida
in April, 1773. He was largely financed by Fothergill: Dr.
Lionel Chalmers wrote to William that Fothergill advanced ten
guineas to set him a going; that besides £50 sterling per annum
will pay him for his drawings; and later that he has sent several
reams of paper "in order to your collecting a Hortus siccus;
"and also two flat, tight, tin canisters, I take it, to preserve papers
"from wet." Fothergill did not do so well as he had hoped
out of the arrangement, for he writes to John Bartram, " I have
"received from him about one hundred dried specimens of plants,
"and some of them very curious; a very few drawings, but neither
"a seed nor a plant." He is sensible of the difficulties, but he
thinks he should have sent things as he went along ; he has paid
bills drawn on him "but must be greatly out of pocket, if he does
"not take some opportunity of doing what I expressly directed,
"which was, to send me seeds or roots of such plants, as either by
"their beauty, fragrance, or other properties, might claim
"attention." An account of his Travels was published by W.
Bartram in 1791, and is one of the most famous books of its
kind; it had considerable influence on English literature, par-
ticularly the writings of Coleridge and Wordsworth.
Fothergill, in spite of his generosity, was always careful not
to encourage an intensive study of natural history to the detri-
ment of business. His relative, Benjamin Waterhouse, relates
C