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Stockholm 25th August 1725. O.S.
Sir,
On the 28th of May I was honoured with your kind letter of the 30th of April. The inclosed list of Books and Dissertations I left with Dr Benzelius when I was lately at Upsal, who promised to get as many of them as possible, which offer will be much for your service, because the Dissertations are hardly to be met with here, except now and then straggling in Auctions, and tacked to others of little or no value. In the mean time I am looking out for what is to be had here, which I shall send when opportunity offers. Dr Roberg at Upsal gave me, when I was there, the enclosed four Dissertations: 1. De Pernionibus. 2. Ossa tuberosa. 3. De pede marcescente et indurato. 4. De metallo Danemorensi, some of which I find in your List. I was surprised to hear that Rudbeckii Hortus Botanicus was not in the last Parcel I sent by Mr Brighter the Messenger. The Packet indeed was not sealed up, which I omitted on purpose in order to his untying and dividing it, if it should prove too bulky in his valise. But I am positive I put it up with the rest, nor can I find it among my Books here, so that I almost believe it was only overlooked at first, being but so small a size. However I have met with another and hereby send it. If you have since found the first, I beg you will let Dr Sherard have this, if he has not got one yet. I had lately a Letter from him in which he appears very desirous of Till-land’s Planta Aboensis, a Book which he says he never was master of. I have got that likewise, but as it is marked in your first List which I took with me from London, I send it to you, till I can find another, which must be by mere chance, for it is very scarce. M. Norborg who was formerly Minister to the Swedish Church in Ratclif Highway, having helped me to it, has desired to carry it, that he might have the honour to wait on you with it himself. He sails in a few days for London, to take leave of his Congregation there, being now otherwise provided for in his native Country. He assures me there are no Bibles printed in the Lapponian tongue, for this reason I lately bought a Prayer Book or Liturgy in that Language, in which two leaves being tore out, I shall keep the Book
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till I meet with another to supply that defect. We have had for a long time no Auctions here, and the many Messengers that have gone backwards and forwards between this Place and London and Hanover, have afforded a good deal of business for me, so that I have not had sufficient leisure for discharging so soon as I could have wished the Commissions you have honoured me with. But the Auctions have begun again, and Dr Benzelius will be here sometime next month, so that by these helps I shall be betters able to answer your desires, & opportunities will not be wanting to send what I meet with.
This will be delivered to you with a Letter and a Packet from Dr Benzelius, which he sent me lately from Upsal.
I beg leave to assure Dr Scheuchzer of my respects, and to wish him good success in his work on Kampfer’s Japan.
I am with the profoundest Veneration
Sir
your most humble
and obedient
servant
P.H. Zollman
P.S. M. Norborg is now
with me, and I have persuaded
him to let me send Planta Aboensis
in this Packet. He intends however
to wait at you at London.
Philip Henry Zollman (c. 1680-1748) was the Royal Society’s first Assistant Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, a post he assumed in 1723. He first landed in England in 1714, was trained in several foreign languages, and regularly corresponded with Leibniz (Derek Massarell, ‘Philip Henry Zollman, the Royal Society’s First Assistant Secretary for Foreign Correspondence’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 46, no. 2 (1992), 219-234).
