Harrow <1>
July 12th 1811.
My dear Mamma,
As soon as you left me, I sat down to read, and compose my spirits, Doctor Butler <2> lent me a book called Irish Bulls, <3> this as you may imagine was not very agreeable to my present turn of mind, however I continued to amuse myself during the long time Doctor Butler was at dinner with Ld Mulgrave,<4> with it: afterwards I walked out with Henry Perceval,<5> down to the place where the boys bathe, he is a very nice little boy about five months older than me, I cannot help crying while I write this letter: in the evening I walked out in the garden with Dr Butler, I had no heart to go and see the match at cricket, neither did I know the way there: O, I hope Mr Feilding <6> or you will soon come & see me: but I will go on: after tea I went to bed: I wished to cry but could not: I was forced to tell a story, which was very tiresome: I have four of the most disagreeable boys there can possibly be, in my room - A. Percival, <7> Barker, <8> Grey, <9> & Campbell; <10> At six in the morning a bell rang, we are allowed from thence to half past seven to get up: I got up immediately as I know you dislike my staying in bed after I am awake, then I went down to Doctor Butler who gave me twenty verses to do, & six lines of Greek to construe, which was a great plague before breakfast; after breakfast he looked over my verses, & heard me say my lesson, then he told me I might go and learn my lessons with the middle remove of the fourth form, but I do not know whether he intends to place me there for good or no: however I suppose he does: well then the fourth form had for their lesson ten lines of Greek & twenty of Ovid, which was a new plague to me as I had not a quarter of the time which they had to do it in, a long time being taken up by my examination. Then we said our lessons to Dr Butler as our private tutor, & I was ashamed of some of the boys who looked over the Latin part of the Greek Epigrams or Farnaby as they call it here Dr Butler asks the derivation and definition &c of almost every word, which not being used to at Rottingdean very much puzzled me: then we went up to the school, up half a dozen pair of stairs, to say our lessons to the master of the fourth form, who kept us also a long time in a hot close stuffy little room, my mind is so unsettled that you must not wonder at my being so annoyed at every little trifle: I am so fatigued that I know not what to do. I do not know the town well enough to go anywhere, besides the scorching heat of the sun prevents me: you know not how many many ages seem to me to have been included in one single day! Today making a slight exertion, one of my braces broke in two as I said it must surely soon do, I would be much obliged to you to send me a new pair 1 ft. 9½ inches long, as also I wish to have a new jacket like this one I have now got, I mean the Green one, as the other is worn out: if you will write often, you will much comfort me, & I shall conclude my sorrowful I hope for the last time, letter by wishing you may never be so sorrowful and ennuyé <11> as I am at present,
Your affectionate Son
W.H.F. Talbot.
Lady Elisabeth Feilding
31 Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811-1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. Rev George Butler (1774-1853), Headmaster at Harrow.
3. Probably Richard Lovell and Maria Edgeworth, Essay on Irish Bulls (London: 1802).
4. Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave (1775-1831), soldier and politician.
5. Rev. Henry Perceval (1799-1885), son of Spencer Perceval (1762-1812), British Prime Minister 1809-1812 (he was shot whilst in office); cousin of Arthur Philip Perceval (note 7).
6. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.
7. Hon Arthur Philip Perceval (d. 1853), son of Charles, 2nd Baron Arden. He came to the school in January 1810 and became a monitor in the year he left in 1817. He resided in the boys' boarding house called The Head Master's. He was a Fellow of All Souls College 1821-1825; Rector of East Horsley, Surrey 1824-1853; Chaplain to George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria.
8. Lincoln's Inn Fields. He was the son of Rev J. Barker, Cambridge, entered Harrow in January 1810 and was in The Head Master's House.
9. There were three boys called 'Gray' at Harrow at the time. The first one was John Edward Gray (d. 1887), Curate of Gayton, Northants. and later of Wembley Park. The second Gray boy (not credited with a christian name in the Harrow lists of graduates) became a Colonel in the Grenadier Guards and was of Betchworth, Surrey. The third Gray boy was probably unlikely to be the one mentioned in this letter as he was a home boarder, which meant he boarded at home and attended daily. George Robert Gray (d. 1883), Vicar of Inkberrow, Words. 1830-1883; JP for Warwicks. and Worcsson.
10. Duncan Campbell (d. 1882), JP and DL of Argyll. He was the son of W. T. Carr of Locknell, Bonaw, N.B and entered Harrow at Easter 1811.
11. Bored.