10 June
We send to Italy Saty next 15th <1>Dear Henry
The photogenies <2> are very good & very acceptable – I wish you could contrive to mend Natures perspective – we draw objects standing up & she draws them lying down which requires a correction of the eye or mind in looking at the drawing.
Pray take every pains to perfect the Camera branch of the art – that will be the most useful & the grand cheval de bat. <3>
I admire the head from painted glass it will be invaluable for the preservation of that class of art – There is a mutilated but graceful head of the virgin in Abbotsbury Church which I should be very glad to learn to take off. – It looks like one of the early German School.
Were any of the leaves I sent you from Abby <4> of any use? You should try all white or pale coloured flowers but may not white be opaque?
I am going to talk to Jane <5> over the map about her travels which they all look forward to with delight – Fanny <6> is come very well & has brought bulbs & Fungus melitearis –.
I have fine specimens of Allium Siculum or Dioscoridis Nectaroscordum of Lindley <7> – a curious departure from true Allia but very unlike my idea of Nectar. Are your Persian Umbelliferæ coming up?
Yrs
W F S
Notes:
1. Which dates this letter to 1839.
2. That is, photogenic drawings.
3. […bataille] great battle-charger, that is, the greatest breakthrough.
4. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
5. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).
6. WTHFS’s cousin – daughter of the Rev the Hon Charles Strangways, a brother of the 2nd Earl of Ilchester.
7. Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist.