Saturday
It will suit my Ladyships’ convenience that your Wranglership should arrive on the 25th – therefore on that day læti expectamus te. <1> when I left Middleton <2> they were full of an Oxfordshire Meeting to counteract the stupid ultra loyal addresses, & in to day’s paper I see a letter from Lord Jersey <3> which was composed while I was there. I [illegible deletion] bought those books (or the Prophecies I mean) on your recommendation & took them down to Melbury, <4> thinking that would be quiet place [sic] for that sort of reading but no sooner were they unpacked than Charlotte Lemon <5> seized upon them & carried them off to Came, with a promise to return them soon which has not been kept but as William & Ly Ilchester <6> are to be in town in ten days I hope Charlotte will think it expedient to send them up. Non altro per ora se non ch’io prezo Iddio chi vi mantenghi sempre nella sua santa grazia – <7>
They had a brilliant Meeting in Wiltshire I am glad your County is so sterling
London Jany twenty 1821 Auckland <8> –
Hy Fox Talbot Esqr
Trinity College
Cambridge
Notes:
1. We joyfully expect you.
2. Middleton, Lancashire.
3. George Child Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey (1773–1859).
4. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
5. Lady Charlotte Anne Lemon, née Strangways (d. 1826), WHFT’s aunt.
6. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat, and his wife, Lady Sophia Penelope Jolliffe, née Sheffield (1822-1882); first m. WTHF Strangways, second m. 1stBaron Hylton.
7. Not for another hour that I praise God who keeps you always in his holy grace.
8. George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland (1784–1849), Governor General of India.