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Document number: 2809
Date: Fri 14 Feb 1834
Dating: corrected to calendar
Harold White: 15 Feb 1834
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: TALBOT Constance, née Mundy
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA34(MW)-14
Last updated: 27th October 2013

Lacock Abbey
Friday

My dear Henry,

You certainly deserve the greatest praise for being so good in writing. – Mr Feilding <1> was much amused by your anecdote of Mr Sheil. <2> – indeed you have no idea of the value of your remarks to us, as they give one ten times as good an idea of all that is going on as what one reads in the Newspaper. –

I am so glad that people speak more sensibly this Session, <3> you & all your fellow members, must feel it to be a subject for congratulation.

Mr Feilding was mentioning to me yesterday, the wonderful manner in which some books became missing which you had selected for the purpose of reading with me on a certain occasion. – I told him that I felt persuaded that they had been found again, but not till a long time afterwards. I asked him what the names of the books were that I might know whether they were the same that I supposed but he could only recollect one viz. a single volume of the Contes Arabes. – only he thought there were 12 or 13 in all, & that they were odd Vols. – some belonging to you & others to him. –. Am I not right that they were found?

The groom will be in London tomorrow I believe. – Can you send the enclosed letter to Mrs Dowdeswell <4> soon? as I have asked her to execute a little commission for me, which if she does it in time you will please to send me by the Groom she will put her name upon the parcel that you may know what it is. Mlle Amélina <5> would be much obliged, if you would send her an ounce or two of Irish Snuff Snuff, and Lady Elisabeth, <6> I know, wants Mr Bulwar’s [sic] book, England & the English <7> – I do not know whether she has thought of [illegible] it herself. – I should also like much to have “I Promessi Sposi” <8> which is in the same great box with England & the English if the Groom can bring it, but it is not material: –

The letter I have enclosed in another cover, for you to frank to Marian, <9> was packed up yesterday; and therewith I had written a few affectionate lines to you, but it was just too late for the post. –

Yr affecte
Constance –


Notes:

1. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.

2. Richard Lalor Sheil (1791–1851), politician.

3. Parliamentary session.

4. Her cousin, Sophy Dowdeswell, née Mundy (1812- 19 May 1847), m. 1833, John Christopher Dowdeswell (1812-1850), and died in childbirth.

5. Mssr Petit De Billier, Paris-based brother of the Talbot family governess.

6. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.

7. Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, England and the English (1833).

8. Alessandro Manzini, I promessi sposi, storia milanese del sec. XVII (1833).

9. Her sister, Marian Gilder, née Mundy (1806 – 14 October 1860); m. 6 August 1844 William Troward Gilder (d. 1871), Army Surgeon (ret). As an MP, WHFT had franking privileges and was entitled to free postage. Members commonly gave signed covers or envelopes to friends. At the time, the recipient paid for postage (to ensure that the letter was delivered). This arrangement was withdrawn in January 1840 with the introduction of the Penny Post, which instituted uniform costs and pre-paid stamps.

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