Talbot Correspondence Project: STRANGWAYS William Thomas Horner Fox to TALBOT William Henry Fox

Wednesday

Dear Henry

Caroline ^<1> tells me you are to be in town today with Charles ^<2> - if you like to come with him to dine quietly with us any day after tomorrow, we shall be glad to see you at � past 7 -

Mary Selwyn ^<3> is with us she will be glad to have your opinion on two beautiful Saxifrages she has brought up from her garden, & as you are for Switz^d you may chance to find them there again in situ - Elinor Llewelyn ^<4> has also brought up a Dianthus alpinus which I dare say you know.

But what will be most interesting to you is a curious fern, found by Maurice, Louisa Howards ^<5> little boy, near Hazelby. I suspect it a variety of Ruta Muraria running into the character of A. Septentrionale or some such, but becoming not only spearshaped but palmate Two have been found I hear. Shelburne ^<6>'s youngest boy is taking greatly to ferns & cultivating them - Floret amor filicum ^<7>. After you have seen it I shall send the specimen to Hooker. ^<8>

Y^r affec
W^m

I hope you left all well near Edinburgh ^<9> - for a letter to M^rs Talbot at Edinburgh was returned to us - ignored in that city

Notes:

1. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, n�e Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808-1881); WHFT's half-sister.

2. Charles Henry Talbot (1842-1916), antiquary & WHFT's only son.

3. Probably a daughter of Rev Townshend Selwyn (1783-1853), botanist, Vicar of Kilmington, Somerset, and Canon of Gloucester, and his wife Charlotte, sister of Caroline Leonora (d. 1819), wife of Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3^rd Earl of Ilchester (1787-1858).

4. Elinor Amy Llewelyn (1844-1887), daughter of WHFT's cousin Emma Llewelyn, n�e Talbot.

5. Louisa Howard, n�e Fitzmaurice (d. 1906), daughter of Lady Louisa Emma Fitzmaurice.

6. Henry Fitzmaurice, Lord Shelburne, 4^th Marquess of Lansdowne (1816-1866), MP.

7. May the love of ferns flourish.

8. Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), Prof & botanist, assuming this dates to before 1865. Otherwise his son Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911).

9. This could date the letter to the Millburn Tower years, that is from June 1861 to December 1863. Before taking Millburn Tower, near Gogar on the outskirts of Edinburgh, the Talbots rented houses in Edinburgh New Town, and afterwards they owned 13 Great Stuart Street, Edinburgh, frequent home of the Talbots from 1863-1871.