Penrice Castle March 9 1847
My dear Henry
I received some time ago a copy of your book on Etymology for which I ought sooner to have sent you my acknowledgments. It has much amused me, and has the great merit that one may begin at the end, or in the middle, which is an arrangement of reading I am much given to. There are some of your etymons in which I confess I do not concur. e.g. Devil. What can be clearer than that Devil (English,) & Diawl (Welsh) are the same word? Diawl from Diavolo <[reek text]. Surely it cannot be pretended that Diavolo or Diable can be derived from "The Evil" or "de evil" or that Diawl has any other root than Diabolus.
There is a row of houses near Margam called "The Constant" you would be puzzled to guess the derivation, but I am old enough to remember that it was formerly called Constantinople, & an old man assured me he remembered it being built & that it was so named, because the first inhabitant’s name was Turk!
Here are two etyms for you. ‘Awns’ (of barley &c) from ‘horns’ ‘Gadso’ (interjection) from ‘Cazzo’ I think if you had been much in Greece, you would never have maintained that Homer’s [Greek text] meant a field of daffodils. Every field & every possible place for a plant to grow there is so completely covered with the Asphodel, that it would be as natural for a Greek to talk of asphodel fields as for us to talk of clover fields, it is the weed of those climates in Spring. I remember bringing a clump of beautiful scarlet cyclamens in flower from Paros, but when planted here to my utter surprize the only flower was Asphodel, the roots were I suppose mixed.
I heard from Calvert Jones whom I saw at the assizes that you are thinking of going abroad for health. Is that so? & if so, when and whither? I shall be moving to London about Easter & if you are not gone, would pay Lacock a visit chemin faisant
Yours ever truly
CRM Talbot
[envelope:]
W. H. F. Talbot Esqr
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
2 Mansfield Street
Portland Place
London