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Document number: 01711
Date: 15 Sep 1828
Postmark: 1828
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: FEILDING Elisabeth Theresa, née Fox Strangways
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA28-67
Last updated: 12th March 2012

Carclew <1>
15th Sepr

Carissimo <2>

I have just received your letter <3> dated the 4th of this month & am very sorry we did not know sooner how to direct to you par France. <4> – You seem to have forgot [sic] that we settled when we parted that I was to write seldom, having nothing to tell, & you were to write often having every thing to communicate that could enliven us, & as we are all of us so fond of a foreign letter, we even doat on the Post mark. We had three weeks of magnificent Weather which is now all gone. This enabled us to enjoy Dorsetshire & Devonshire but as soon as we got into Cornwall there was an end of it. This place is much prettier than I expected and the House extremely comfortable, the climate of course mild, so much so that an olive Sir Charles <5> brought from Nice is now flourishing in the open air, & a Carauba. Caroline & Horatia <6> somehow caught a fresh cold going to see Corfe Castle <7> & have a complete return of the Hooping cough, we have been obliged to have the Physician from Truro who attends Sir Charles, & who luckily is extremely clever. What do you think he has cured Sir C– with? Prussic acid!! Poisons are all the fashion & more so in the English Pharmacopeia than any other. I should have been extremely uneasy at not hearing from you for so long, if a Letter from Harriet Pyne <8> had not mentioned having seen you. I do not understand why your Letter to day was so very short. Why did you not tell us anything about Chamoncy? Have you been botanising? Have you met with any English that you know? You will not see the Lansdownes <9> unless you catch them in the Via Mala. They settled to go by the Rhi[ne]<10> over the Splugen to Milan & so [text missing] then over the col de Tende to Nice [text missing] Spend a Month at Paris. Sir Charles is every thing that is amiable & appears to the greater advantage in his own house. He is all kindness to Caroline & Horatia. Lady Morley <11> told us when we were at Saltram that Mr Stapylton has got an Irish Bishop to ordain him, & Lord Egremont <12> ( Lord Carnarvon’s <13> Uncle) has given him a small Living, so it is to be. Pray go & see Coppet, I have always regretted that I did not. Have you seen M. Dumont? <14> – I saw Mrs Floyer <15> (what a jump!) at Blandford races, she volunteered an éloge of your cousin, She thought him excellent in every respect. But at Saltram we heard he was sometimes given to Dythirambics [sic]. verbum sat. <16>

I have not been quite so happy here since I discovered that there is a manufactory of Arsenic close by, enough to poison our whole planet I hope we shall get safe back out of it neighborhood [sic].

Sir Richard Vivian <17> is coming here

Monsr
Monsieur Henri Fox Talbot

Poste Restante
Genève
en Suisse
par France


Notes:

1. Carclew, Cornwall, 3 mi N of Penryn: seat of Sir Charles Lemon.

2. Dearest.

3. See Doc. No: 01708.

4. Via France.

5. Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle.

6. 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.

7. Corfe Castle, Dorset.

8. Lady Harriet Payne Gallwey (1784-1845), née Quin, wife of Lt Gen Sir William Payne Gallwey (1759-1831), 1st Bart.

9. Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle; and his wife, Louisa Emma Petty Fitzmaurice, née Fox Strangways, Marchioness of Lansdowne (1785-1851), Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, 1837-1838, WHFT's aunt.

10. Text torn away under seal.

11. Frances Parker, née Talbot, Lady Morley (d. 1857).

12. George O’Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751–1837), famous patron of art. He was immensely rich.

13. Henry George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon (1772–1833).

14. See Doc. No: 01638.

15. Probably related to William Floyer. [See Doc. No: 00909].

16. She means ‘verbum satis’, enough said.

17. Possibly Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, 8th Baronet (1800–1879), Tory politician and student of science. [See Doc. No: 01722].