Winchester
24th July 1828
My Dear Mother
I hope you will not go to Lacock on Tuesday, because I intend to return to London on Monday, and shall stay several days in Town before I go to Switzerland. I have been this morning to see Winchester College. It is very interesting. The cloisters have windows very like those at Lacock, but they go round the entire quadrangle, and the centre instead of being vacant, is filled up by an ancient chapel, now used as a Library. The roof of the cloisters is arched & much higher than ours. The poor boys are not allowed to walk in their cloisters because they deface them out of mischief. –
Winchester seems to be a very strict school; I do not like the appearance of things there; the boys have no place to write their exercises in, except the school rooms while at Harrow <1> each boy had his own little separate study. The boys eat their dinner off square wooden benches, just as they did in their Founder William of Wykeham’s <2> days. I forgot to ask whether they were allowed no gravy. The chapel is very handsome, its tower would be mistaken for one of the churches of the city. Winchester is a very curious old city full of antique buildings –
I was so long examining the college that I returned too late to accompany Lady Mildmay’s <3> & the Duchess’s <4> party to the Racecourse (which is 4 miles from the city) and that has given me time to write this letter. I went to the Races the 2 first days, the sport was not very good, the weather extremely unfavourable, & so it is today again. We shall perhaps have the harvest spoiled as in 1816. The Duchess of Wellington is a very good natured person and she has a very humble opinion of herself –
There was a crowd to see her, & Lady Mildmay observed to her that if the Duke <5> had come the crowd would probably have been much greater. Yes, said they ‘tis like the story of the knife & fork; When Margaret Nicholson stabbed the King, <6> the Knife was shown for a shilling, and the Fork that belonged to it for a penny. Wm Bankes <7> left us last night, he was very amusing. He met Count Forbin <8> once in Egypt who shewed him his drawings of antiquities well executed, but without the least fidelity. He said to him one day; There is only one of these columns of which you have drawn two. Pardonnez moi, <9> said the Count. “Mais mon cher, replied Bankes, c’est le fait.” “Tant pis pour les faits.” <10>
I wrote to you from Cowes, and to Mr F <11> from Winchester.
Your affte son
Henry Talbot
Lady E. Feilding,
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811–1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. William of Wykeham (1324–1404), founder of Winchester College and of New College, Oxford.
3. Jane Dorthea Methuen, née Mildmay (1789–1846).
4. Lady Catherine Sarah Dorothea Wellesley, née Pakenham.
5. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852).
6. Margaret Nicholson (1750–1828), failed assassin of King George III. On 2 August 1786, Nicholson, a deranged woman, attempted to assassinate the King at the garden entrance of St James’s Palace.
7. William John Bankes (1786–1855), politician.
8. Louis Nicholas Philippe Auguste, Count Forbin. In 1817–1818 he had published Travels In Egypt, Being A Continuation Of The Travels in the Holy Land.
9. Forgive me.
10. But my dear Sir, replied Bankes, it’s the truth. Too bad about the truth.
11. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.