Naples
17 – feb –

My dear Henry

I desiderate a long botanical letter from you – have you received any seeds from me? I send you a Galanthus from Campobasso, which Tenore ^<1> thinks cannot be nivalis but minor Clusii, or something between that & plicatus Marsh. Bieberst. ^<2> – I think it a common snowdrop – but as we have no authentic ones here to compare it with I shall write to Dorsetshire for one to be sent. Pray tell me what you recommend with regard to my plan of having my copies of frescoes lithographed ^<3> & where. I hear from Florence, a Perugino which I knew, has just been sold for a sum of 1500 Scudi – about £375 – for Munich or Dresden – Those Germans are raising the price of antiques terribly – It has one good effect – it draws many curious & good things out of of [sic] obscurity – Wallis ^<4> has finished his great picture of Diomede’s horses – it is very well spoken of –

Tell me how Lacock & garden are going on – Kit ^<5> is here or rather is gone to shoot near Pæstum I charged him to bring me a packet of Nar. serot. bulbs – Il n’en fera rien ^<6> – He talks of his house as if it was a thing to be bought ready made or ordered from a shop in Bond St like a plum cake or a sugar Palace – I am sorry his architect has persuaded him to take patterns & examples from modern gothic houses, which are no authority, such as Tregothnan &c. – instead of going to the fountainheads such as Warwick, Longleat, Cotele, &c Have you read Bucklands ^<7> paper on the fossil palms of Portland – he has just sent it me –

Y^r aff^te
W F S.

Henry F. Talbot Esq^r
31 Sackville St
London
Lacock abbey ^<8>
Chippenham
Wilts

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Notes:

1. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.

2. Baron Friedrich August Marschall von Bieberstein (1768–1826), the botanical authority for Galanthus plicatus.

3. See Doc. No: 01762.

4. Probably George Augustus Wallis (1770-1847), Scottish born painter resident in Florence who also was an art dealer and served as a representative of art dealers.

5. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.

6. He won’t do anything with it.

7. William Buckland (1784–1856), Dean of Westminster & scientist, On the Cycadeoideae, a family of fossil plants found on the oolite quarries of the Isle of Portland (London: 1828).

8. Readdressed in another hand.