Penrice <1>
Novr 21st
My dear Henry
To receive a letter from you on this side the water was a great pleasure & a still greater to expect you here, the greatest of all will be to have you to spend Christmas with us in the old family style. The sooner you come the better & the longer you will stay with us the better pleased we shall be. Jane & her little boy <2> are here, Mr Nicholl <3> is in London but expected again to return in a day or two. Charlotte <4> has been a great invalid but is better now than I have seen her lately. Christopher <5> is busy in Oxford but I expect him home about the second week in December – he is very nervous about his examination which has been put off till now as there were no examinations in the Spring. I had not heard of Harry’s <6> accident till I recd your letter but I have since & I think it seems to be one that will be troublesome to him but not dangerous – I have been very busy spreading the plants that Jane collected, on white paper & She is delighted to hear of more. We have two boxes of seeds now growing that have arisen from seeds from the Botanical garden at Naples but as they are mostly tender I am afraid I shall not have shelter for them in a year or two when they grow large. the Pyrenean Auricula is in health & I hope to succeed as well with Janes mountaineers – the little Gentian & the musk orchis. Jane has been acting as cicerone & as we look over the many prints here of Rome &c she describes & we can more readily fancy ourselves there with (to me <7> the agreeable feeling of bei[ng]<8> at home – Your Aunt Charlotte <9> is at Torquay neither she or Mr Lemon <10> are well but I hope the spring will be a season of revival to them both. – I spent a very pleasant week with my sister Louisa but Lord Lansdowne <11> was in Paris, tho’ perhaps he is returned by this time – all here, I need not tell you are excessively impatient to see you & you may believe me, as ever,
your affe aunt
M: L: Cole
1823 <12>
Swansea Novr twenty-two Chrishr Cole.
Henry F. Talbot Esqre
31 Sackville Street
London.
Notes:
1. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
2. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874), and her son John Cole Nicholl, born 30 August 1823
3. Dr John Nicholl (1797–1853), MP.
4. Charlotte Louisa 'Charry' Traherne, née Talbot (1800–1880), WHFT’s cousin.
5. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
6. Possibly Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).
7. No closing bracket.
8. Text torn away under seal.
9. Lady Charlotte Anne Lemon, née Strangways (d. 1826), WHFT’s aunt.
10. Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle.
11. Louisa Emma Petty Fitzmaurice, née Fox Strangways, Marchioness of Lansdowne (1785-1851), Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, 1837-1838, WHFT's aunt; and her husband, Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle.
12. Address panel written in the hand of Sir Christopher Cole.