Salisbury
22 Febry 1837
Dear Talbot
Here is a small living in your gift. – If you think it worth while, looking after – & not parting with it, till you have yourself ascertain’d the value, I should be most happy to see you at the Canonry – & to shew you the Pictures, which I shew’d Lady Valetort, <1> & which I had Painted, to illustrate my history of Lacock.
If you have not determin’d on whom to bestow them this living, & are at a loss about a Possessor, (which is not indeed very likely) – I can recommend an Excellent young Man, by the name of Macrae,<2> well known here – a popular preacher, & who would be of great advantage to the parish. – At all events I should be most happy to see your [sic] here, where you will be sure of a Knife & fork, & [illegible deletion] a kind canonical hospitality, as long as you stay – & believe me,
always yours truly
W. L. Bowles
Henry Talbot Esqr
Lacock Abbey Chippenham
31. Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Misspelling for the wife of Lord Valletort, Lady Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding (1808-1881); WHFT's half-sister; Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, 1840–1854 & 1863–1865.
2. An unusual name in the list of clergy members. It might have been Isaac Vanden Heuvel Macrae(born, US, 1820) who matriculated at Oxford in 1840 and became Curate of Wensley, Yorkshire.