Melbury <1>
19th Novr
My Dearest –
when I see all the quantities of botanical books that are here it makes me doubly regret you did not come with me, as I am sure you would have been amused. The night we left Andover London we slept at Andover & found it all lit up for the Queen <2> & troops of radicals parading about, the Inn was illuminated on the ground floor but not the Drawing room where we were at tea, presently they became incensed at this & flung large stones against the windows which broke them into a thousand pieces & strewed the floor with broken glass. Car & Hor <3> had a narrow escape, for they had been looking out at the mob but a moment before – Mlle Amelina <4> was in great astonishment tho’ She had often heard of the liberty of England, but could not believe it. She preserved a stone to shew in France, where they always imagine such things cannot be without a revolution. Let me know whether you take more exercise or still continue to trim the midnight lamp. Emily Murray <5> has some communication to make, so I leave the pen to her –
Vale carissime! <6>
I have gathered a flower of the Lonicera Japonica, it is delicious & smells more like an artificial perfume than a natural one
The Hibbertia crenata, the convolvulus brionifolius, the Jasminum Sambac the Erica ardens, erica caffra & [text missing]<7> the Four o’clock Flower are all in blow. Like
[address panel:]
Sherborne <8> Novr twenty 1820 Ilchester <9>
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
Trin: Coll:
Cambridge
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. Queen Caroline Amelia Elizabeth (1768–1821) of Brunswick. She had recently returned to England to claim her rights as queen after the accession of her estranged husband as George IV. A Bill to deprive her of her title and to dissolve her marriage had been postponed on 10 November, and effectively dropped. [See Doc. No: 00897].
3. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
4. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal ].
5. Amelia ‘Emily’ Matilda Murray (1795–1884), author.
6. Goodbye, dearest!
7. Text torn away under seal.
8. John Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherbone (1779–1862). The address panel is written in his hand.
9. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).