[[1]]*1
H.M.S. "Erebus."
Cape of Good Hope. Jul Ap[ri]l 18. [1843]
(recd. July 14. 1843)
My dear Aunt Mary,*2
I am very much obliged by the many nice letters with which you have favored your
ungracious nephew & I should really enjoy to sit down & write you a good answer to
this kindness, but I send so much home that what I say cannot be news to you.
Again, there are many persons who correspond with me, to whom I do not feel half
the regard that I have for you, but who would not look so leniently on my omitting to
answer their letters. All this is very selfish, you will say, & so it is; but what am I to
do?
You remind me of the times when we used to sit in the study (where probably you
now are & where this note may reach you some 2 months hence) reading Tacitus:*3
at least you & my Grandfather reading it & I looking on. Alas! I never had much
taste for Latin & Greek, or any of the dead languages; & (except that I should have
the satisfaction of knowing that my father's money was not so much thrown away,) I
greatly doubt if my having been a good scholar would give me now so much
pleasure as you might imagine. What I do really regret is the little attention I paid to
Ancient & especially to Modern History. If half the time spent on the Classics had
been devoted to those subjects, the knowledge of them would prove a far more
agreable[sic] companion than Horace, Virgil or even Homer. Do not think I underrate
those attainments,
[[2]] which alone make a man the perfect gentleman; but I had no taste for them,
though ample time & opportunity for all. As it is, I sometimes attempt to rub them up,
but I enjoy nothing so much as Hume & Smollett*4 (continuation of Hume's History of
England). This mainly arises from those writers' bringing up associations, connected
with different parts of my native land, & of scenes, though perhaps only scampered
through via Mail Coach, which my memory, very retentive of localities, enables me to
revisit, along with the heroes of my Author. A love of Poetry is also a sad deficiency
in me, for you cannot suppose that I should learn to appreciate it, by being crammed
with stanzas of Marmion*5, not amid Castles & Groves, but in a school of a 100 boys.
Crabbe's*6 poems are my favorites (laugh at me if you will), because I can go with
him everyth where. As for Thomson, "void of rhyme as well as reason," he is quite
too lackadaisical for me. To the Southward, in bad weather, I used to spend a great
deal of time in reading, chiefly books upon scientific subjects, which are of most
importance to me, now that I have to work for my bread.
I do not think that I ever told you of Sir John Franklin's*7 having asked for you & Aunt
Harriette[sic]. He is, in all respects, a good man, & an ornament to his profession as
a Christian & a Sailor: I know no one in this service who comes near him, except it
be Capt[ai]n Parry*8 & D[octo]r Richardson.*9
Mr. MacLeay*10 of Sydney, also enquired about you & all: he has a remarkably
strong memory, as has Mrs. MacLeay. I did not
[[3]] recollect to speak of this when writing to my grandmother, but their questions
were very gracious about her, I spent much time with them &, with their only son &
daughter, who are now at home, & so pleasantly that even now I cannot tell how the
hours flew so swiftly. I must have prated a great deal, for I know we were it a talking
the whole while, during my visit, about things present & especially things past.
Oldest Mrs. McLeary was still alive, at 102, in the North of Scotland. (She is dead
now.)
In drawing I do not improve much, though I have made several sketches of the
places we have visited. There is but one tolerable Artist in the Expedition, Mr.
DavisX of the "Terror." Dayman, (Aunt Ellen's acquaintance) who was the best, is left
behind in Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania] (at the Observatory). Your pencil would be
invaluable here, though you would have grown heartily tired of Bergs & Ice. Captain
Ross*12 used often to make me sketch coastlines of hills & valleys of snow, which is
most miserable work. Could I have colored[,] nothing would be so grand as a view of
the scenes we have visited, if in fine weather; but let the weather be what it will, an
Iceberg is always a treacherous thing at the best.
Now my dear Aunt, I should like to say more, but have nothing worth communicating.
You will therefore let me conclude with the assurance that I am you very affectionate
nephew | J. D. Hooker
To Miss Turner )
Yarmouth
)
X Mr.
Davis made the drawing of the storm which assailed the Ships around the
Icebergs.
ENDNOTES
1. This letter is a contemporary 19th Century manuscript copy written in a hand not
that of the original author, Joseph Dalton Hooker. The copy was probably made by
Hooker's mother or sister so that a version could be circulated amongst family and
friends.
2. Mary Anne Turner (1803--1874). Joseph Hooker's maternal aunt. Daughter of
Dawson Turner and Mary Palgrave.
3. Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire.
He was considered one of the greatest Roman historians, known for his brevity and
compactness of his Latin prose.
4. Hume, David and Smollett, Tobias George, (1825), The History of England, from
the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688, London.
5. "Marmion" is an epic poem by Sir Walter Scott about the Battle of Flodden Field.
6. George Crabbe (1754--1832). English poet, surgeon and clergyman.
7. Rear--Admiral Sir John Franklin (1786--1847). British Royal Navy officer and
explorer of the Arctic who served as Lieutenant--Governor of Van Diemen's Land.
He disappeared on his last visit expedition, attempting to chart and navigate a
section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic.
8. Sir William Edward Parry (1790--1855). English rear--admiral and Arctic explorer.
His 1819 voyage through the Parry Channel was probably the most successful in the
long quest for the Northwest Passage.
9. Sir John Richardson (1787--1865). Scottish naval surgeon, naturalist and Arctic
explorer. He served on John Franklin's first and second Arctic expeditions. In 1838
he was assigned as senior physician to the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar near
Portsmouth.
10. Alexander McLeay (1767--1848). Leading member of the Linnean Society, fellow
of the Royal Society and member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. He
was Colonial Secretary for New South Wales. His chief natural history interest was
entomology, principally Lepidoptera.
11. Joseph Dayman was mate on the HMS 'Erebus'. In 1840--41, while Ross made
his first cruise towards Antarctica, Dayman was one of three officers who remained
in charge of the magnetic observatory in Tasmania.
12. Sir James Clark Ross (1800--1862). British naval officer and explorer known for
his exploration of the polar regions. Captain of the Antarctica expedition of 18391843, comprising the vessels HMS 'Erebus' and 'Terror'. Joseph Dalton Hooker was
the expedition's assistant surgeon on the 'Erebus'.
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