Castleford – <1>
Nov. 3d 1815.
My Dear Mr Feilding,
I received the Gun & the Desk this morning: The latter will do perfectly well. I have been buying stationery for it at Pontefract today. – Mr Barnes <2> has settled that I shall want the following books –
Homer – I have got the Iliad, but I want the Odyssey also –
Horace – I have got. 
Sophocles – I have not got.
Juvenal – I have got.
Cicero de Officiis – I have got.
– Select Orations – I have not got.
Sallust. I have not got.
Tacitus. <3> I have got a part of his works, namely his life of Agricola, & his book “de moribus Germanorum” but I want all his works, & do not know whether they can be purchased without the abovementioned. –
Bonnycastle’s <4> Arithmetic, Astronomy, & Algebra. of which I have none, except perhaps the [illegible deletion] Astronomy.
Gisbourne’s Survey, <5> which I have.
Common Prayer Book.
Common Place Book, after the plan of Locke, which Mr Barnes thinks will be useful such as those published by Hamilton & Co. Shakespeare’s Head, Beech Street.<6> – If it is inconvenient to get it there, we can get it made at Pontefract, or make it ourselves here: – If you do send it, rather send a thin one. –
N.B. I suppose all the new books had better be in boards –
I remain, Yrs Affectly –
WHFTalbot.
Capt. Feilding
31 Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Castleford, Yorkshire, 10 mi SE of Leeds, where WHFT went to school from 1815-1816.
2. Rev Theophilus Barnes (1774 –1855), of Castleford.
3. The classical authors are, in order, Homer, the Greek epic poet; Horace (65–8 BC), lyric poet and satirist; Sophocles (496–406 BC), Athenian tragic poet; Juvenal ( ca.55– ca.127AD), Greek satiric poet; Cicero (106–43 BC), Roman statesman and author; Sallust ( ca.86– ca.35 BC), Roman historian; and Tacitus ( ca.55– ca.120AD), Roman historian.
4. John Bonnycastle ( ca.1750–1821), wrote a series of introductions to each of these subjects.
5. Thomas Gisborne (1758–1846), wrote a survey of the Christian religion.
6. The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) first published his thoughts on Commonplace books in a French encyclopedia in 1685; these books were designed to improve memory and organise thoughts. Locke's approach was most widely known from posthumous English translations. Hamilton, located in the Barbican, London, issued a John Locke Common place book (London: printed for Hamilton & Co, 1797); it had eight pages of letterpress followed by 360 blank pages.