Letter 3853

[fol. 158] Honor’d & dear Sr I recd your ler with a very particular pleasure because there in I flatterd my self, that I perceiv’d you had a favor for me, in a matter you will guess by the station I am now in. my living here is worth £200 pound. & I have lately a salary of £25 pound settler on me by the Bishop of Lincoln, as I am governor of an hospital at Stanford, by vertue of my living. & I have a further expectancy of a living in our neighborhood. but it will be some trouble & charge to vindicate the Bishops intended favor to me. which I should dave, as well as the time I could employ better: if you should please more plainly to encourage my hopes. & then I should think only of pushing my future fortunes, in a different quarter of the world. our common friend Mr Gale who well knows all my views, can explain this, if you please to ask him about it. All I have to say, in my own favour is, that no one in life ever had a greater respect for Sr Hans Sloan, than my self, or has upon all occasions more I endeavord to vindicate this honor, when I liv’d in town. & the doing it has cost me some friendships, which I never regretted. I could mention in particular, that it bred a great coolness in a neighbor of mine of Ormond Street. as I always espousd your interests cordially, so I shall be more engag’d to do it when you are my patron, & shall be more enabled to do it, when fixd nearer the Thames, for which I shall willingly enough change my present station, tho’ a very pleasant one. I should then be set more in the eye of the world, & could be then a constant member again of the R. Society, & should endeavor to be an useful one. I have some discourses which I wrote in town, with a view of sheltering them under your name. they are some considerable curiositys in Botany never yet taken notice of. I might then have opportunitys of improving them so as not to be unworthy of your patronage. I hope you will excuse the freedom I here take, in confidence of the long acquaintance I have had with you. no Would I have it thought, that i have done any dishonor to the profession of physick by taking another gown. the first founder of the College did the same, Dr. Linacre, I mean, & dyd a dignitary of the church. & one of my views in it, under direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was to combat the infidel spirit that prevails so much in this generation, for which I have made some preparation, & may perchance, doe it more effectually, when I cam to enter the lists, than some others have done, that were altogether bred up in Divinity studys. I heartily pray, dear Sr for your health & happyness, & for the prosperity of your family in all its branches, & am with great truth Dear Sr Your most obliged obedient servant Wm Stukeley Stanford 19 Dec. 1730. I drank your health yesterday at the Duke of Ancasters. the Dutchess & Marquisse of Lindsey are now under my care. I have some curiositys in my colletion, the few yet very remarkable, which I should think honor’d by being added to your invaluable Museum. & I have had some thoughts about that, which I should be glad to communicate, if you have not better settled it your self: so as to be a most noble monument of your fame & learning & industry &c. Pardon haste – I expect to be in town in February.