Melbury <1>
28th Decr
My Dear Henry
I was so sorry after your departure yesterday that I did not ask you to write to me after your arrival at the Abbey, just to intimate you were alive after so cold & dismal a journey. I thought of you all the Afternoon & Evening, & consulted Wright <2> as to the Moon which I hope lit you on you way. One comfort is that you might be at home at 8 o’clock but by Bridgewater not till Midnight as you could not have caught the train you intended, that everybody agreed. I have just given Emily Murray <3> the 1st & 2d No of Hermes, & the Antiquity of Genesis. <4> Her great friend Lady Byron <5> is a good Greek Scholar, & she means to lend it her. I wish to make it more known – besides shewing the versatility of your genius. Your Uncle <6> was very cordially sorry to part with you
Affly Yrs
EF
[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot Esqr
Laycock Abbbey
Chippenham
Wilts
I have just given Theresa <7> a Pencil of Nature <8>
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. James Wright, footman to the Talbots & Constable for Lacock.
3. Amelia ‘Emily’ Matilda Murray (1795–1884), author.
4. Hermes: or Classical and Antiquarian Researches, No. 1. (London: Longman, Orme, Green, Brown & Longman, 1838), and WHFT, The Antiquity of the Book of Genesis, Illustrated by Some New Arguments (London: Longman, Orme, Green, Brown and Longman, 1839).
5. Anne Isabella ‘Annabella’ Milbanke, Lady Byron (1792–1860).
6. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).
7. Mary Thereza Talbot (1795–1861), WHFT’s cousin.
8. WHFT, The Pencil of Nature (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, June 1844–April 1846 [issued in six fascicles])