Burley <1>
Twelfth Day, 1817.
My Dear Mamma,
We are the only people left here besides Ld Winchilsea <2> who returned yesterday afternoon, Miss Finch, <3> George, <4> & Georgiana - We dined Saturday at Cottesmore <5> - I spent Friday at Mr Bonney's <6> and like him very much - He seems to me to be a very good classic & mathematician - I am very much improved in the noble & scientific game of billiards - We have all done breakfast long ago but George has not yet made his appearance.
The experiments made at the Surrey Institution <7> with the blowpipe, have excited my curiosity - Pray can I be present at them on my return to Town? The weather is very remarkably changeable, I scarcely ever observed it more so - Mr Bonney is something of an Astronomer, but I believe not very much. Indeed Mathematics are so intimately connected with Astronomy, that he must know something of it - Yesternight was fine, but the Moon was too near the full to be able to view the stars well; - It was raining just now, but at present the Sun shines.
for Car. & Hor. <8>
Cùm Luna est plena, illa
when the Moon is full, she
profundit tantùm lucis, ut
pours forth so much of light, that
non possis videre stellas-
you are unable to see the stars -
I am Yr Affte Son
W. H. F. Talbot
Notes:
1. Burley, Stamford.
2. George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea (1752-1826).
3. Henrietta Finch (d. 1818), sister of George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea.
4. George Finch (1794-1870), JP & MP, and his sister Gerogiana Augusta Finch.
5. Cottesmore Hall, home of William Lowther (1757-1844), 1st Earl of Lonsdale.
6. Thomas Kaye Bonney (1782-1863), Rector of Normanton, later Archdeacon of Leicester.
7. The Surrey Institution, Blackfriars Road, London, was founded in 1808 to provide scientific and literary knowledge and resources to its subscribers - it had a substantial library and chemical laboratory. On 20 December 1816, the scientific writer John Murray (1785-1851) demonstrated Dr Clarke's new oxy-hydrogen blowpipe at the Surrey Institution, fusing platinum and burning a diamond.
8. 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.