Brussels
March 7
Dear Henry
I am going to leave Brussels tomorrow or Wednesday morning – and expect to see you at Paris Friday or Saturday at farthest – I might be there Thursday but I want to see the Palace at Compiègne & the Cathedral at Senlis – If there is a room in your hotel that would suit me pray take it for me or if there is any in the neighbourhood that I can have for not more than a week – which is in fact more than I shall be able to stay – as I have fixed on going by Nice at all events – I shall try to come in early in the day & shall drive straight up to the Terrasse.
Do not call your new gender Chariessa it sounds so like the Greek Grammar – If your plant is pretty or interesting I have a name to which I have been long looking out for a genus or species but I thought I had no chance of finding one within my bent, & that I must wait till somebody would dedicate genera to me as to Mr Lambert <1> but if you have one to spare call it Callista amabilis or præcox, or formosa or elegans or anything –issima Callista pulchella would do as well as Gloriosa superba – or Arethusa plicata or Calypso or Eugenia Euphranea &c –
I am glad you are taking to Geology you should have begun before you travelled – I have been reading the last Vol of Transactions <2> which is more than usually interesting – The Palms as they are called may be Ferns or Pines or Aloes Yuccas Dracænas &c or any of the regular growing fibrous plants of which the <creatrix?> of the leaf re<mains?> <3> on the bark – no fructification has been seen & they are now attempting to detect their family relations by the style of the reticulation of vessels in the leaves –
Yrs
W T H F S
A Monsieur
Monsieur Henry Talbot
Hotel de la terrasse
Rue de Rivoli
à Paris
Notes:
1. Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761–1842), botanist.
2. Probably the Transactions of the Linnean Society, London.
3. Text torn away under seal.