Florence

21 May

Dear Henry

It is just such weather as you remember here, I have been the walks we took together & find nearly the same plants. I have a second hab^{t <1>} for Ophrys Epipactis microphylla having found it in Villa Strozzi – it is as sweet as a clove pink – I found quantities of limodorum abortivum – On the Apennines I found Primula suaveolens var. inodora & Orchis Sambucina vera. I mean to botanise about Radicofani next week – & to go to Orvieto –

What a happiness to be out of hearing of reform! I wonder you dont dream of it. I prefer the beauties of Riva & the Lago di Garda to the hustings of Chippenham or any other. Why is Burlington House ^<2> like the Gulf of Corinth?

Now the poor Bolognese are wanting money, to satisfy the rapacity of the Guelfs & Ghibbelines ^<3> who for once are united against them, you may get fine pictures for little. Rossi has some good. Neri nothing. Montana very good, for a dealer. Guinardi was not there. There is to be another insurrection I understand as soon as ready – with entire new machinery &c – The events of next July are foretold to be of a nature that will eclipse the last. It is a prevalent opinion here that at the present moment Louis Philip ^<4> is cutting his own throat. The Austrians ^<5> are so overbearing & care so little to conceal their wishes for troubled waters wherein to fish, that the next opportunity for war will be seized with avidity. Carignano ^<6> is the man who has Italy more in his power than any other.

I go to Naples in a day or two – write to me there I shall send you a cargo of bulbs &c next month. – Pray remember to give us some of M^r Herberts ^<7> bulbs – Glad. tristis (what an odd approximation ^<8>) flowered out of doors at Ab. ^<9> this Spring – I know M^r H. made some varieties of it I found Erythræa maritima did you ever?

Y^r Aff^te

W F S.

I think there is but one Erythræa & two Polygalas in Europe

H. Talbot Esq^r
31 Sackville Street

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Notes:

1. Habitat.

2. Burlington House houses the Royal Society.

3. The rival parties of pope and emperor in medieval Italy; here the names are used as shorthand for the contemporary religious and secular authorities. Bologna was a papal possession, but a revolution in 1831 gave it a brief period of independence.

4. King of France since the revolution of 1830. He declared that France would neither intervene in the affairs of other countries nor permit other powers to do so.

5. Austria ruled much of Italy at this time.

6. Charles Albert (1798–1849), Prince Carignano, who succeeded to the throne of Sardinia 27 April 1831.

7. William Herbert, Dean of Manchester (1778–1847), MP; clergy; botanist; linguist.

8. That is, combination: Glad (Gladiolus) and sad (tristis).

9. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.