Naples
13 Dec 1831
My dear Henry
As you did not mention a word to me in your letter about Carolines <1> marriage I ought not to give you my congratulations but that I cannot withold them, for further particulars enquire of Horatia <2> to whom I enclose an answer. Have you a Vigna <3> full of Cyperus badius <4> for the occasion which I could not foresee when I gave you Mauri’s <5> Roman proverb. <6> I am glad to hear of anything besides cholera & Reform. <7> As to the former I hear that at Vienna it was not so terrible nor created so much alarm when it arrived as the expectation of it had done some months before. I think England may be said to have the Cholera figuratively if, as they say, commotion in the interior & feebleness in the exterior are symptoms. I think we have a bad prospect for next year.
I wish you could give one of your weeping Cypresses to Bowood <8> & chuse a warm spot for it in the pleasure ground where it will look handsome & have space on the grass – I can send quantities of seed, but as your plants are well grown & fit to transplant, one of them could be planted this spring & would have a considerable start. I have found a very pretty Thuja (articulata) which I will send you it is like a Casuarina. Sedum sexfidum must be what we call Hispanicum – Every distinct Sedum has a tribe of little imitators that trouble one exceedingly I think they will end by bring [sic] on themselves a reduction into mere varieties. They have here one that is neither acu nor Sexangulare, but like them. One quite new S. Magellense with round flat leaves & rostratum unlike any other – It feigns death in summer & on the first rain, stands up on end & becomes green & grows into a little tree, leaves like your sexfidum but stretched out into a long stalk like reflexum – in the hot weather it contracts into rostra, or tubes & lies flat on the ground like dead sticks – I call it redivivum. They have some pretty new evergreens here I recommend you Smilax lanceolata, Celastius cassinoides, Kiggelaria Africana, Cordia myxa, Lyciu[m]<9> Boehaviæfolium. I am curious to know what yo[ur] unknown Scilla is whether a Muscari or not. Have you among your Linarias the recurva which I found in Puglia – the Amethystina of Portugal, the odorata of Russia, or Pelisseriana of Italy?
I shall continue to send you seeds of Euphorbias & ferns, pray cultivate what you can get from the gardens particularly Lycopodium Helveticum, Pteris longifolia, Cretica &c. They have here a Polypodium Cambricum which I never saw in Wales – Do your sedums grow on walls? If you see any of the London horticulturalists do tell them I have found the real Crocus argenteus or Parkinson’s Cloth of Silver <10> it is in fact the Crocus Imperati albiflorus & one of the most lovely of the species. native of the mountains of Amalfi & La Cava – Do you know Muscari autumnale it is pale blue like the var of botryoides called Hercules’s club, but with rush like leaves & flowers more distant – I want to know how the paper narcissus flower this year they are in great beauty here. I believe your ground is good for poplars – pray plant some of all the species in good places where they will become handsome trees. I recommend you the weeping elm as a very pretty tree –
Yr Affte
W F S
have you made a rockwork yet?
Crocus odorus is now C. longiflorus
H. F. Talbot Esqe
31 Sackville Street
Lacock Abbey Chippenham <11>
Wilts
Notes:
1. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister. Her marriage to Lord Valletort took place on 6 December 1831.
2. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Vineyard.
4. Brown sedge.
5. Ernesto Mauri (1791–1836), Italian botanist.
6. See Doc. No: 02200: ‘The vineyard where the weed grows, Give it away as your sister’s dowry’.
7. Two parliamentary reform bills had been rejected in 1831. It was to be another six months before a third bill eventually became law.
8. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.
9. Text torn away under seal.
10. The ‘Cloth of Silver’ appeared in John Parkinson’s Paradisus in 1629.
11. Readdressed in another hand.