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Letter from William Hunter Campbell in Demerara to John Hutton Balfour dated 6 January 1855.
Campbell writes from Demerara; Nothing for years past has shocked and grieved me so much as the account your letter conveyed of the death of poor Edward Forbes leaving him as I did in full health and intellect as it were but yesterday, and apparently entering on a journey which promised the most abundant reward. It is truly deplorable to think how all his hopes and ours have been suddenly dashed to the ground. It will indeed be difficult, perhaps impossible to supply the place of one possessed of so much talent and such varied accomplishments and the loss to the University is in that respect a serious one. Among all the names you mention, save Owen, there is not one equally illustrious, although most of them were many years his senior. Perhaps long and continual friendship may have made me more blind than others to his faults and more prejudiced than I ought to be as an admirer of his genius but even at this distance from the scene of his brilliant, but short-lived career, and with the opportunities I had of judging for myself on hearing of the opinions of others, I cannot but think there were very many so equally admiring of him as I did and anticipated the highest results from his brilliant career. I am truly obliged to you for your kindness in giving me such full particulars of the melancholy details attending his last days and I cannot help thinking it must have been a consolation to him in his last moments to have had so many of his old friends around him, and to have breathed his last almost in homage in a place endeared to him by so many recollections and associations: the scene, in fact, of his first aspirations as a man of science and of his triumphant attainment to the the height of his ambition, I would well content to die if I could achieve as much praise as he has done. As to the bust it is one of the few remaining tributes we can pay to his memory and I shall feel obliged if you will arrange to add my name to the subscribers’ list. I have no doubt that my friend Brand will pay the amount when called for. I am in the greatest haste to be in time for the mail, else I would give you some account of our “Industrial Exhibition" which has been more successful than expected. However one of my qualities is obstinacy and I would not listen to doubts of failure. I worked on it for three whole days during the Xmas holiday and the result sufficiently rewarded me, for all who saw what we had done said how pleased they were and the Governer has said he would support similar exhibitions in the future. The fibres were excellent and I hope to save some for you. The woods were a disappointment but I have now laid the foundation for getting what I need in that way for the future. I shall keep your museum in mind and hope to contribute something for your acceptance. I send a list of the prizes. Remember me to Mrs Balfour and my warmest congratulations on the latest addition to your domestic circle. You have now got a long way ahead of me in that department as in all others and long may you continue. Your old friend ,etc.-----

Letter from William Benjamin Carpenter, 22 Park Street, Bristol, to Dr. John Hutton Balfour, Dundas Street, Edinburgh, dated 20 December 1837.
W.B. Carpenter writes: I am very obliged by the trouble you have taken regarding the Cryptogamic Flora which arrived safely, the copy is for our purposes as good as new; in fact better being so neatly bound. I received the money some days since and I am sorry through forgetfulness allowed it to lie on my desk without taking the necessary steps to transmit it to you. We have been disappointed respecting a copy of the Wernerian Transactions which we expected to get from a London shop but it had been sold. If you should meet with a cheap copy [say 2 1/2 or 3 guineas] I might trouble you to send it to the Institution or if you should fall in with the volume containing Greville’s & Arnott’s account of the “fructifications of mosses” I would like it for myself. In the latter case send it to London. I have just finished a long and wearying article for the April number of Forbes and am now intending to take up the Fluirative[?] system of plants. There will be a paper in an early issue of the Philosophical Magazine translated from the German which will delight Martin Barry; the author founds his views of analogy and therefore his morphological doctrines entirely upon development which he has very minutely studied and his results are very interesting. His account of the early formation of the embryo confirms my speculation of the correspondence in their first stages, up to the formation of the cotyledons, of the germination of the Peria[?] And the full development within the ovule of the flowering plant. Reid’s paper reached me safely and has interested me both regarding the subject itself and the candid and philosophical mode in which he has treated it. Will you tell him that Forbes seems desirous of engaging his assistance for his Review and will write to him soon.
I sent my programme to Dr. Tweedie last week and mentions you along with Simpson and Maclagan as very able coadjutors. I am rather surprised that the Thorntons should not have mentioned Lindon/Simson[?] As Dr. W.P. and his father are to concoct the Article Inflammation, and were consulted as to the plan of the work. Christison also is to do a good deal for it [He is Tweedie’s brother–in-law] but I believe principally in the development of Practical Medicine. As my plan will probably occupy him some time in digesting, I do not expect to hear very soon from him.
I was much amused in some of the bits in Mafa[?]. Pray put by a series for me to send when you have an opportunity. W.P.’s Phiz is as well hit off as if Phiz himself had done it. Martin Barry is not quite so well sketched but the idea is good. It is very easy to trace Long Forbes’s style in many of the articles especially his typical subtypical and aberrant which reminded me of a disquisition of his on the components of whisky toddy. I am not sorry that Hopper has been so well cut up. Why did not the writer [Percy I believe] bring in his 300 and odd cholera cases and his going to sleep on the body. His story of his French blanchisseuse would not have been amiss? Pray give my kind regards to Percy and tell him it will give me great pleasure if he can find time to write to me, especially if he will give me some good critique on my botanical article in Forbes. I had an application from the mistress of a large and fashionable girls' school at Clifton to repeat my lectures to her pupils for a handsome fee but I declined it as rather infra dig now that I am established as a professional man.
Believe me to be most sincerely yours, William B. Carpenter.