(1743 - 1824), poet, translator of Rousseau's Premier Dialogue and botanist, e. s. of Brooke Boothby of Ashbourne Hall, Derby (who suc. fa. 1787 as 6th Bt.); St John's Camb. 1761; m. 1784 Susanna Bristoe; suc. fa. 1789 as 7th Bt.
1775 - 6 Turin (autumn 1775), Florence, Rome (by 30 Nov.), Naples [Venice (Mar. 1776)]
Boothby, a sensitive, well-educated man whose health was never robust, appears to have spent much time on the Continent but only some seven months in Italy. In the autumn of 1775 he crossed the Alps to Turin, and he went on to visit Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice.1 In Rome he witnessed the Possesso of Pius VI on 30 November 1775.2 Amongst Boothby's papers is a note dated Venice 26 March 1775 (but conceivably 1776). On 6 April 1776, returning home, he was in Paris, calling on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom he had first met in England in 1766.3 Boothby was in Germany and France in 1777 travelling with Hugh Meynell.4
1. Notes by Dr Sjaak Zonneveld from Boothby's ms Memoirs, begun in 1816 (Glam. RO, d/d f bo). 2. Wal. Corr., 24:131. 3. B. Nicolson, Wright of Derby, 1:126 - 7. 4. R.A. Leigh ed., Correspondance compl?te de J.J. Rousseau, 40:52, 140f., 176f.