Lulworth Villa
St Mary Church
Torquay June 19
My dear Henry
I did not answer your last, waiting to hear the result of Mr Macmillan.<1> I heard yesterday from Sir R. Christison,<2> with an extract from Mr Chambers<3> note to him, saying that "if the Lady should like to send him her MS. he would be very glad to see it – he paid well, & could say that he never snubbed any literary aspirant."
He went on to say that he should be glad to see any other papers, especially any on old trees, so that will be a chance for me by which I shall immediately try to profit. Under these circumstances I should have another chance for Mrs Campbell<4> if Mr Macmillan does not take it as it is. I am quite resolved to alter nothing more, but the one line to be omitted about the bed; so he must take it as it is, or leave it. Please to secure this for me, as I cannot interfere by writing straight to him not knowing what he is saying to you. I am certain about Uncle Harry,<5> & see no possible harm in it. I heard all about it at the time, which probably you did not, & no one would have dissuaded him, as my mother thought it was done. It is quite unobjectionable.
Yr aff cousin
Louisa C. FramptonP.S. I put my name to the paper for many reasons, & as showing I was connected with the & Ly H. F.<6> mentioned, & therefore knew about it all; but chiefly because one of Sir C. Lemon’s<7> current bits of advice to us, "If you ever write anything to publish, always put your name – it is better, & more respectable, & you will never write anything to be ashamed of – always put your own name."[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Notes:
1. From 1868-1883, George Grove was the editor of MacMillan's Magazine, a monthly published in London and Cambridge.
2. Sir Robert Christison (1797–1882), M.D., Scottish physician, chemist and botanist.
3. Chambers Edinburgh Journal was a weekly started by William Chambers in Edinburgh in 1832. By the 1850s, its publication had moved to London, under the title Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Arts.
4. Eventually published by Frampton as ‘Princess Charlotte and Mrs Campbell’, The Gentleman’s Magazine, n.s. v. 27, September 1876, pp. 275-289. Alicia Campbell, née Kelly, ‘Tam’ (1768–1829), a close family friend of the Framptons, first joined Princess Charlotte’s household in 1805.
5. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).
6. Lady Harriot Frampton, née Fox Strangways (1778 - 6 Aug 1844); dau of Henry Thomas Fox Strangways, 2nd Earl of Ilchester and Mary Theresa O'Grady; she married James Frampton (1769-1855) in 1799.
7. Sir Charles Lemon (1784-13 Feb 1868), politician & scientist; WHFT's uncle.