Melbury <1>
8th Jany
My Dear Henry
William <2> has been heard of, having unexpectedly cast anchor in Burlington Street, but when coming here nobody knows, according to the Strangways fashion, which always keeps dans le vague. <3> He is still under the impression that you contemplate a winter at the Hague, which he deprecates, as one of the worst places in Europe. I see there is a new Edition of Lord B's Childe Harold, <4> illustrated with sixty prints! for one Guinea!
this can only be on the penny postage system - & the cheapness will make it pay itself. [illegible deletion] I see too that Moore's Irish Melodies <5> are advertized with 154 designs by the celebrated Maclise. It says "the work has been some years in preparation The text with an ornamental border to each page, as well as the other designs, are all engraved on Steel. The price cannot at present be fixed, bound in Morocco it will not exceed 3 guineas & will probably be only £2. 12. 6" - Is it not very unusual to advertise [sic] before the price is fixed? They are wonderfully cheap, considering they are not lithographies but Engravings.
I have just been reading of the Stolidity of Booksellers, & the little instinct they have about M.S.S. "The Trade" - "a Trade more remarkable for misvaluation of its raw material than any other in existence".<6>
Mr Montgomerie <7> is just arrived, we mean to give him your place in the Family coach & take him back with us for two or three days, for his leave of absence is very limited -
Affly yours
E F
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795-1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
3. Vague, uncertain, not to make detailed plans.
4. George Gordon Byron, Childe Harold's pilgrimage (1788-1824).
5. Thomas Moore's major poetic work Irish Melodies (1807-1834).
6. Quoted from the review of W. Tookes, The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill, in the Edinburgh Review, v. 81 no. 163, January 1845, p. 57.
7. Rev George Stephen Molyneux Montgomerie(1790-1850), close friend of Talbot family, artist, Rector of Garboldisham, near Thetford, Norfolk.