[fragment]
My dear Henry
I received your letter from Paris soon after I arrived in England & did not answer it because I had written to you the day before a letter which I sent to Sackville St <3> & which I hope you have received – I have not yet done wondering at you & do not envy you your journey at this season – I guess you were snowed up near Eisenach in some of the narrow vales of the Thuringer Wald – Is not Fulda a truly old German bishopriky capital?
I am here watching Giles <4> who is better & I hope will mend with the season – but he has had a long illness & it cannot be soon over – The Talbots <5> are just got to Penrice <6> in their usual state of health – Poor H. Frampton <7> has the jaundice which makes her snowdrops look yellow & violets green – Pray be particular & tell me what flowers you found between Gotha & Weissenfels – We have had a tolerable season – only two bouts of frost & snow – pretty sharp however but not sufficient to kill or slay – Melianthus minor, Ixia crocata, Oxalis purpurea, Cassia corymbosa, Iberis Gibraltarica, Metrosideros lanceolata, Leptospermum pubescens, Agave Americana, Mesembryanthemums of sorts & the other wonders of my garden – I mean to cultivate assiduously all the N. Holland <8> shrubs they seem to stand our climate better than many of the S. of Europe – Oleanders take to the soil so that I hope to make them a stock plant like the Myrtles – the old one from Constantinople has borne a pod or follicle this year & I have many varieties from Italy – the ground is full of Aconites which remind me of Florence – their usual companion Ornithogalum is not yet out. The Crocus John <9> sent me is in flower it seems a small variety of the Crocus Imperati of Tenore <10> which we found at Castel amare – but I am not sure –
I do not expect to leave England before your return
I have got more seeds than I know what to do with besides my own Italian – I have Mexican, Himalaya [sic], Austrian &c Polish, Siberian – I wish you had a regular garden at Lacock to raise plants in such lots at once are thrown away here – it is impossible to attend to them all – My cuttings of Sedums & Euphorbia Pithyusa from Florence are growing – but dendroides I lament is no more I should like to see you here in May – I am planting Sedum hispanicum on the walls –
[letter incomplete]
Notes:
1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
2. The hand writing of this letter is similar to Doc. No: 01340, and there might be a possible link between the two documents.
3. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
4. Giles Digby Robert Fox Strangways (1798–1827).
5. The Welsh cousins, probably with their mother, Lady Mary Cole.
6. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
7. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
8. Australia.
9. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.
10. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.