Dear Sir

As you & I have not much time to lose, I trouble you with a[...]n immediate Letter of thanks. The d[...]note is received & is a full discharge. As to moses I toke [sic] care to settle affairs with him some time ago. He is now out of work for want of the sheets of the arctic Zoology.¹ As you know best how to prepare them for receiving marginal drawings, Be so good as to get as many sheets as are printed, & procure them to be pressed in the manner you treat y^r books & let them be instantly sent by the Chester coach with such parcels that M^rHughs has for me.

As I propose much pleasure from this work, age pressing on, I put the Introduction into the press, that I may enjoy the beautiful illuminations ready for it.² Possibly I never may live to see the Zoological part printed. I therefore recommend you to buy a L. P. copy. you may burn the old [...] Introduction belonging to it, & put the Quadrupeds, the Land Birds, & the water fowl into three vols. in boards.³ I can give you many additional p[...]rints even for those. Do you chuse any views on separate leaves that are too big for the margins for I have some very fine. apropos buy Phips voy. to Spitzbergen in sheets as I have. the prints are good & to our purpose. also Fred. Martens voy to Spitzbergen.

yr drawing shall be done as you desire. & I shall get one done for myself.⁴ moses is only to work for you & me till thise opus magnum is finished.ⁱ

my son wrote last from Perpignan enraptured with the fine line of the Pyrenees before him which he is on the point of passing: & is I hope now safe at Barcelona. He will be at Madrid by June 1. what must I bid him get there for you or me.

I wish I could make your daughters & all the the daughters of the Land comb their heads & keep out of the putrid air of an assembly room, & ill health would soon vanish. But combed or uncombed I wish you & all y^r lineage well.

at y^r leisure be so good as to add to the list of Thane's publications & return it.

Let me not conclude without enquiring after M^r Storer & begging my best wishes may be conveyed to him

Yrs most truely

T Pennant

Downing Jan 10^th 17878.

when you pass by Turnstile you will be so good as to call on M^r Hughs who will settle the time of sending the sheets.

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Authorial notes

i. Although Pennant generally reserved the term 'magnum opus' for his 'Outlines of the Globe' he may here be referring to work on the 'Introduction of the Arctic World', which he developed into 'Introduction to the Arctic zoology', and in which he involved Bull, according to the evidence of this letter. His own copy of the 'Introduction' eventually formed a part of the 'Outlines'.

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Editorial notes

1. This may be a reference to the preparations for a new edition of Arctic zoology, featuring the 'Introduction'. See further n. 2, below.
2. Pennant may here be signalling the preparation of a new edition of the introductory essay, 'Introduction of the Arctic World', under the title 'Introduction to the Arctic zoology'. This eventually became the first volume of the second edition of the work, which was published in 1792.
3. Pennant appears to be advising Bull to purchase a copy of the first edition of Arctic zoology (1784–5) to use alongside a new version of the 'Introduction of the Arctic World' (1784) in the absence of a second edition of the entire work, which did not appear until 1792.
4. This drawing has not been identified.