London in 1710, from the travels of Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach [19 July 1710. Visit to Petiver]
On
19 July, Saturday morning, we drove
to the house of the apothecary Petiver [*]JAMES PETIVER of Hillmorton, b. 1663. He was an apothecary and practised in Aldersgate Street from 1692 to 1718. He was a noted naturalist and entomologist. He was elected
F.R.S. in 1695. He died in 1718 and was buried in St. Botolph's Church, Aldersgate Street. See 24 July as to von
Uffenbach's later visit.
in Aldersgate-street, to whom I had
to deliver a letter from
Dr Kissner of Frankfurt and packet of Eisleben
ichthyolites. Since he is one of the most renowned members of the
English Society and has won a great name for
himself with his collection we expected to see a paragon of learning and refinement;
but he was quite deficient in both. For he appeared to be wretched both in looks and
actions and he had no parts, speaking very poor and deficient Latin and scarce able
to string a few words together. I have nothing to note of his collection and natural
curiosities, for as soon as he gets any object of the least value he immediately has
printed a short and insipid description of it, dedicating it to any person with whom
he has some slight acquaintance; and then he takes a present for it. Everything is
kept in true English fashion in prodigious
confusion in one wretched cabinet and in boxes. The best thing he has is possibly
his plants, of which lie has several volumes; he also showed us a fresh packet of
them that had just come from Spain. He also had
some charming insects that he had got from Mad.
Merian. He offers all foreigners who come to him a sample of his
collection; but he takes care to ask a vast sum for it, so I declined with thanks.
Moreover, he was in a great hurry on the pretext that he had to be in the Hall of
the Society by nine o'clock; considering that we had a special introduction to him,
this vexed us extremely. Although he invited us to come again, we doubted whether we
should be able to come another time, since he lives at some distance from us. I
should here observe that letters of introduction are often of little service, and
that people are frequently just as amiable, in fact even more so, when one is not so
provided. For a great many people imagine that
they are bound to be vastly obliging
and on that account are very annoyed, especially men of great distinction, to whom
such introductions are much too frequently sent, so that they often find that their
bearers are quite unworthy of any favour. Upright persons of good parts are
delighted when a man, whom they hold to be worthy of their acquaintance and
patronage, waits on them without any such letter.