Sackville Street <1>
1. Janr 1821
My Dear Henry
I am very glad You like the idea. Louisa <2> has built a very pretty one for L’enseignement mutuel <3> at Bowood, <4> something like a Swiss cottage, & I understand it cost about £100. There is one other thing I think you will like to do, which perhaps I had better explain vivâ voce, <5> it concerns a Benefit Society, a club of labourers of Laycock village & neighborhood of which money was borrowed & never repaid – this is one of the few debts I should advise you to take voluntarily on yourself, being both popular & strictly just to do so – how it happened that the poor in this case should have been sufferers I can better tell you when we talk it over. My Father <6> was very earnest that I should as your Guardian take upon my self from the beginning of your minority to pay all the debts amounting to above £20 thousand pounds, but this I felt I had no right to do, as many of the creditors had no possible claim upon you & many had compromised all the correspondence – & papers upon these subjects I am now going to look for, that you may see them when you come to town. I only arrived last Night from Highclere <7> so have not had time yet. Porchester <8> is gone to pass the Winter at Nice, for his health. Did I tell you of our visit to Stourhead? Whe[re]<9> Sir Richard Hoare <10> attacked me for Something in the tower at Laycock Abbey that is quite necessary to his history of Wiltshire, & at the same time informed me that the said tower is haunted. Mr Paley is Son of the Archdeacon, <11> who never got any further promotion in the Church because he was an Author & the late King <12> had a prejudice against him, Lord Lansdowne <13> recommended him to us merely because he thought it a shame the son of Paley should be nothing but a curate, so I am very glad he has turned out so well
Yrs affly
EF
William Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
Trinity college
Cambridge
Notes:
1. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
2. Louisa Emma Petty Fitzmaurice, née Fox Strangways, Marchioness of Lansdowne (1785-1851), wife of Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne; Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, 1837-1838; WHFT's aunt.
3. Mutual instruction.
4. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.
5. From the lips of, from my own mouth, orally.
6. Henry Thomas Fox Strangways (1747–1802).
7. Highclere, Hampshire, the family seat of the 3rd Earl of Carnarvon.
8. Henry John George Herbert, Lord Porchester, later 3rd Earl of Carnarvon (1800–1849).
9. Written off the edge of page.
10. Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758–1838), historian.
11. William Paley (1743–1805), English Anglican priest. One of his most important works, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), were the subject of lectures at the University of Cambridge. [See Doc. No: 00902].
12. George III (1760–1820).
13. Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle.