Abbotsbury <1>
Sunday 6 Feb
My dear Henry
I had written to you the day before I received your letter & invitation, which I am sorry I can not avail myself of as we go to town next Thursday & I expect to be ordered off very soon after. I had a letter to day from Hart <2> she does not talk of leaving Derbyshire yet & complains of frost & snow – We have had no snow here but at night – plenty of rain, & some very fine days. The garden is really flourishing we have such bundles of primroses, snowdrops, pyrus, &c – 5 sorts of Crocus are out to day – viz – C. pusillus 2 Sorts – C. biflorus major C. luteus, one I take to be C. versicolor, & the beautiful C. Imperati – which I should not be surprised to find the same as C. speciosus of Georgia & Caucasus.
Even the oxalis purpurea are not killed this year & flower beautifully with only a glass over them. I fear my Ornithogs. will not be out before we leave this but they are very forward – how anybody can confound exscapum with umbell: I cannot conceive. Calla Æthiopica is appearing above ground – & plenty of tulips – One I know by the name of Mrs Baring’s, <3> is already in bud, & I am going to run it against a Raddi, in Marys <4> garden at Penrice <5>. They are both varieties of Oculus Solis – I told you of a tulip common in Dorsetshire gardens with all the O. Solis colours, but a different species having smooth instead of woolly bulbs, & different shaped petals – Narcissus præcox, & calathinus, shew flower – as also some white hyacinths – Scilla campanulata is up large, before nonscriptus is appearing & has quite different looking leaves at first – I have one called Italica different again – plenty of S. verna – I want to know how your Cupressus Lusitanica stands – I wish to try mine out – Primula Palinuri in the G House is very fine.
Do you mean to go to town or to wait the event of the mighty Reform <6> at Lacock? I want to get up a petition from Clergymen only against tithes <7>, trusting to the equity of Parlt for a suitable provision less onerous to the public –
Yr Aff
W F S
Henry F. Talbot Esqe
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
2. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
3. Anne Louisa Baring, née Bingham (d. 1848).
4. Mary Thereza Talbot (1795–1861), WHFT’s cousin.
5. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
6. A bill to reform Parliament was introduced in March 1831 but was defeated.
7. Tithes were abolished piecemeal during the 19th century; the first Tithes Act was passed in 1836.