Castleford, <1>
29th June, 1816.
My Dear Mamma,
Pray send me some bark from Apothecaries Hall, <2> for I don’t think what I get here is at all good.
I use the Gargle frequently; whether it does me any good or not, I don’t know. A Son of Mr Baring’s is coming here in a few days – I am glad to find that perhaps Nuttall will not return, & that if he does it will not be for more than a month. My Garden is not so gay as I expected: first because the nurserymen sold me wrong plants, & bad roots of right plants – & secondly because they have not been taken any care of during my absence. Nevertheless there are some pretty things. Give my love to Car. & Hor. <3> & tell them I don’t want my Fern here. When will my clothes come from France? I want two new books. namely –
Æschines contrà Ctesiphentem, Demosthenes de Coronâ, <4> } which are usually bound together
and Xenophon’s Memorabilia. <5>
What news of my German Pocketbook? I rode to Tadcaster <6> the other day, which is twenty six miles.
and remain, Yr Affte Son
W. H. F. T. –
Gryphs – conundrum.
Why is a clever man called a y z ?
The Lady E. Feilding
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Castleford, Yorkshire, 10 mi SE of Leeds, where WHFT went to school from 1815-1816.
2. Apothecaries Hall, Blackfriars Lane, London, dates from ca.1690.
3. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
4. Æschines against Ctesiphon, Demosthenes on the crown. This is probably an earlier edition of Æschinis in Ctesiphontem et Demosthenis De corona (London: R. Priestley, 1837).
5. Probably a contemporary edition of Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates.
6. Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England.