Naples,
Thursday
Feb. 27. 1823
My Dear Mr Feilding,
I think you had much better defer coming here till the end of April, as you originally intended: for, tho’ Naples is always interesting, it must be much more so in fine spring weather. The Campagna Felice, an immense plain covered with trees & vines, is now utterly leafless; which in May must be quite beautiful – Besides the society here would not make you amends for that you would have at Rome. The Compton’s [sic]<1> were to have sailed today, but it blows a gale of wind – & the air is so thick, we cannot see anything of the opposite shore of the Bay. I have been amusing myself with my Theodolite, which Amici <2> has repaired very well – I find the height of Vesuvius just 4000 feet, and the diameter of the Crater 660 yards – Its depth is extremely difficult to measure, what with puffs of smoke, and there being no remarkable object at bottom to serve as a point de mire, <3> and hardly room enough on its narrow rim, to establish the stand of the instrument. I found the depth 640 feet, more or less; most people imagine it greater, for it is a most awful abyss –
The highest mountain I could see from Vesuvius, is the Monte Miletto in the Abruzzi – I measured it, and found it to be 7340 feet. – I saw very distinctly the Monte Circello near Terracina, which is nearer Rome than Naples, & from the top of which one must have a curious & interesting view of the whole country between the 2 capitals – It is near 70 [illegible deletion] miles from Vesuvius, & looked like an island – It is in fact, completely insulated, and surrounded by the Pontine Marshes; –
Yours most affectionately
W.H.F. Talbot
I wish you would explain to me how lending the Sinking Fund helps the Agricultural Distress. <4> – Can you let me have Galignani, <5> after you have read him, for I hardly ever see a newspaper.
I don’t know which is the more magnificent collection, the Vatican, or the Studi <6> here.
[illustration]
Behold a rude sketch of the Smoke from Vesuvius on the evening of Saturday the 22d – as it appeared from our window distant ten miles – We had been up that morning, & the smoke had been increasing all day, till it arrived at the form & magnitude [I]<7> have traced.
Monsieur
M. le capitaine Feilding
Palazzo Ceva
Roma
Notes:
1. Spencer Joshua Alwyne Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton (1790-1851), man of science, known as Earl Compton until 1828, and his wife, Margaret, née Douglas-Maclean-Clephane (d. 1830).
2. Basic surveying instrument of unknown origin going back to the 16th c. English mathematician Leonard Digges, used to measure horizontal and vertical angles. Prof Giovanni Battista Amici (1786–1868), Italian optician & man of science. [See Doc. No: 00992].
3. A mark from which to take a reading.
4. The period from 1805 to 1813 saw a sequence of bad harvests and high prices. From 1815, when an act attempted to fix prices, to 1822, grain prices fluctuated, and continuing protection was increasingly unpopular.
5. Galignani’s Messenger, a newspaper that had a wide circulation among English residents on the Continent.
6. Studi, university at Naples founded in 1224 as a ‘studium generale’ by the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II.
7. Text torn away under seal.