Gênes, à l’hotel de la Croix de Malte,
Nov. 28th 1821
I arrived here today. If you come this way, you must bring all the necessaries of life with you, for there is not anything to be had anywhere, for love or money; they take the money, or rather seize upon it, but give you nothing in return. I hardly kept body & soul together to Genoa, tho’ I never paid higher prices, but here the scene changes, I have found an excellent Inn, and plenty is once more the order of the day. The day I left you I slept at S. Remo, next day at Alberga, so far lovely weather: the third day was cold & cloudy, wind & rain, which together with the rascality of the maître de Poste <1> made me stop at Savona, whence I came on today. The views are lovely all the way, but I think they diminish in beauty on approaching Genoa; – the Towns get too crowded, for though a view of an Italian seaport, is superb, a view in it is a very different thing. The tunnel near Savona cannot bear a moments comparison with the one we saw near les Echelles; It is however fine & lofty. From it you can see Genoa very plain, & the great distance permits you to imagine it as large as you please. After that you see it no more till you are close, when it comes in sight all at once on turning a corner, & I think disappoints you entirely, which comes of hearing a thing praised too highly. The interior of the city of full of people, busy & bustling. You who have such a horror of garlick, what would you think of the venders [sic] of it here, who go about with double & triple necklaces of it, reaching down to their heels. What think you of the shape of a Genoese bed, before it is made [illustration] the head of the bed, being on ye right hand in my picture –
Miss Montagu (Ellinor) <2> wished me to lend her Schiller’s tragedies which are in the 1st volume of Kauperts “Methode d’apprendre l’Allemand”. <3> I wish you would look for it for her. My love to Mr F. <4> & my sisters <5> –
Your Affte Son
W.H.F. Talbot
À Miladi
Miladi Elisabeth Feilding
Maison Belmondi
Croix de Marbre
Nice
Notes:
1. Postmaster.
2. Jean Bernard Kaupert, Méthode pour apprendre en peu de temps à parler Allemand, ou Choix de quelques pie`ces du Théâtre Allemand, accompagné de notes; à l’usage de la jeunesse de la Suisse Occidentale (Lausanne: 1817–1819).
3. Elinor Fazakerley (d. 1847), née Montague.
4. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
5. 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.