Naples
Decr
My dear Henry
I have received 3 letters <1> from you – two came together so when you thought post was going it went only from your house to the Post office Is Ober Botzen <2> in the Tyrol? I never heard that it was famous for needles. I assure you I have the authority of Pallas <3> Clarke, Engelhardt & Parrot<4> for the altitude I assign to Mt Elborus <5> It looks like a lump of melting sugar – & its apparent base is on a level with the average of the snowy range of Caucasus – the mountain as you see it, is all snow –
The shape of Vesuvius which I have this morning descended, is [illustration] it was [illustration] but is lower by 2 or 300 feet than it was & does not seem higher than Somma is in some parts. The crater is quite altered, it is one vast broken chasm like a quarry or a Swedish mine instead of the regular even bowl with flat bottom & little chimnies or Volcanitos in it The day is very cold windy & dusty & I am nearly blind from the storm of ashes & cinder dust that nearly overwhelmed me in descending the Cone it is perfectly quiet – a great deal of common muriate of soda crystallizes on the stones & in some places there are fine efflorescences of sulphur the thermometer 39 F. at the top – 49 at Naples – The Frenchman’s Crater is covered up – no signs of another eruption.
The weather is fine & cold – which is rarely the case at Naples – it is not uncommon for it to be cloudy rainy stormy & cold, but when the sun shines it ought to be hot. I fear this betokens frost in the North, & that my experiments at Abbotsbury <6> are being shrammed <7> which makes me feel uncomfortable when I think of a pinched cactus & shivering Geraniums. I have made great acquaintance with Tenore <8> & mean to make some Botanical excursions with him in the Spring.
I have a little bulb which I brought from the Bosphorus, now coming up in a pot to my great delight it is the Ornithogalum nanum of Sibthorp <9> & this plant is to prove whether or not it is the same with the O. exscapum of Tenore – it is a pretty little plant but like many of the Byzantines more like a Northern mountain plant that a luxuriant inhabitant of 41º lat.
Cic. De Repub. is found at Rome not Pompeii<10> so you are right but then I think Silius Italicus <11> Africa was found at Herculaneam.
Do you not think the de Repub will be found too liberal for the present order of things & may perhaps be prohibited in the next Index Expurgatorius? <12> I think they may publish the Egyptian deed of sale with all its witnesses – and Phizmumpus <13> at the head without doing any harm I have been hunting in vain for Lanzi <14> for myself – Lord Ponsonby <15> gave me a list of unusual books of that sort not one of which is to be had – Search therefore for Bardelli – Borgia – Lampridi – Accaporci – Guarnaccio – & Lami <16> on the same subject. I suppose Scipio <17> was Prognatus patre gnavo <18> ie non ignavo <19> I suppose gnavus existed before ignavus & the vod put in for dolcezza. <20> They say Scipios real tomb is at the Lake Patria near Baia<21> if I do come to Rome I mean to go thro the mountains of the Abbruzzi I want to see Il gran Sasso d’Italia<22> their great mountain –
Yr aff
W T H F S
A Monsieur
Monsieur W. H. F. Talbot
Palazzo Ceva<23>
in Roma
Notes:
1. Letters not located.
2. Bolzano.
3. Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811), natural historian, traveller and author of the Flora Rossica.
4. Edward Daniel Clarke (1769–1822), traveller, antiquary and mineralogist. Clarke, Travels to Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa (4to, 1810–1819; 2nd ed., 1811–1823). Engelhardt, M von, and Parrot F, Reise in die Krymm und den Kaukasus (Berlin 1811).
5. Mt Elburz, in the Caucasus.
6. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
7. Dorset/Wiltshire dialect: chilled, numbed with cold.
8. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
9. John Sibthorp (1758–1796), author of Flora Græca: sive Plantarum rariorum historia, quas in provinciis aut insulis Græciæ legit…, 6 vols (London: Richard Taylor & Co., 1806–1828).
10. Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Republica. M Tullii Ciceronis de republica quae supersunt (Rome 1822) was published following the discovery that year in the Vatican Library of a palimpsest giving the major part of the known text.p>
11. Titus Gaius Silius Italicus (AD25/26–101), wrote an epic poem Punica featuring Scipio Africanus Major (see also note 17). In the 18th century an antique bust thought to be Scipio Africanus Major was found at the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum. This seems to be the link from Silius to Scipio Africanus Major to Herculaneum.
12. The catalogue of works that may be read by Roman Catholics once offending passages have been deleted/expurgated by the censors. Books that are completely prohibited are listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
13. A satirical name.
14. Luigi Lanzi (1732–1810), philologist and archaeologist.
15. John Ponsonby, Viscount Ponsonby (1770?–1855), diplomat.
16. Mario Guarnacci (1701-1885), Italian prelate and historian of the Etruscans. Giovanni Lami (1697–1770), jurist, Church historian, antiquarian.
17. Either Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major (237–183 BC), who led the Roman invasion of Carthage in the 2nd Punic War and defeated Hannibal; or his adopted grandson, Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Minor (185?–129 BC) who destroyed Carthage in 146 [last Punic War]. He opposed popular reform in Rome.
18. The child of an active father.
19. Not inactive.
20. Smoothness, sweetness. A variant form of gnavus is gnaus. William hypothesizes that the v was inserted for ease of pronunciation (dolcezza).
21. Baia, Lake Patria. Lago Patria, near to Baia on the Bay of Naples. Where Scipio Africanus Major lived and had his tomb, as people thought.
22. Il Gran Sasso d’Italia. Mountain in the Abruzzo region, highest Italian mountain south of the Alps.
23. Palazzo Ceva, near Trajan’s Column in Rome.