Penrice <1>
June 22
My dear Henry
As I was going to send Jane <2> a nosegay I gathered two or three blossoms of your plants in the Upper garden to send you to which I have added a few garden flowers which I hope will not be quite faded before you get them. You had better go to Jane for them on Friday she ought to get the basket by one oclock I think. – We are just returned from Culver Hole <3> & have enjoyed ourselves very much the weather is fine & not too hot, there was plenty or air & no peppering storms. I gathered a number of wild plants but no rare ones I believe unless the mignionette may be reckoned one, I never found it any where else, it is more like mignionette of the garden than any I ever saw, I gathered a large flowered Convolvolus on the Sandbank which is a great beauty.
We expect Christopher <4> in a fortnight now & Jane in three weeks so we shall be all together again soon. Sir C. <5> was not a little happy to find himself once more quietly seated at home after all the bustle of London, he is going over to see Mr Dillwyn <6> tomorrow I believe as we have heard he is very poorly. –
I am very anxious to hear of poor Aunt Charlotte’s <7> arrival in England we have not heard anything of them for some time. Charlotte <8> is pretty well she is as busy with her pencil &cc as ever and so is Emma <9> Isabella <10> has been busy with her needle & her beads they are both quite well. – Mamma <11> hardly ever quits her garden she has almost conquered her fits of sneezing now & therefore she enjoys her flowers much more than she could do a little while ago. She has an iris [Julæa?] in flower now for the first time, it is so different from other iris’s that we think it very odd. Numbers of seeds Mamma has sown have come up and all the plants are very healthy The Cistus symphitifolius has been beautiful, I admire it extremely. I have sowed some of the bulbs of the Allium roseum & I long to see them come up it is so pretty.
The<12> Scabious in the upper garden is covered with buds but would not blow for my bidding so I could not get any to send you. –
I have no news to send you but that the birds have eaten up all the cherries almost & we eat up the strawberries every day
Good bye
all send their love
I am your affate coz
Mary
1825 Swansea June twenty two Chrishr Cole
W. H. F. Talbot Esqre
Albany <14>
Piccadilly
London
Notes:
1. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
2. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).
3. A cave on the south coast of the Gower Peninsula near Port Eynon, about 2 miles southwest of Penrice.
4. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
5. Sir Christopher Cole (1770–1836), Captain, MP & naval officer.
6. Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778–1855), Welsh botanist & MP.
7. Lady Charlotte Anne Lemon, née Strangways (d. 1826), WHFT’s aunt.
8. Charlotte Louisa 'Charry' Traherne, née Talbot (1800–1880), WHFT’s cousin.
9. Emma Thomasina Llewelyn, née Talbot (1806–1881), photographer; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
10. Isabella Catherine Franklen, née Talbot (1804–1874).
11. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776–1855), WHFT’s aunt.
12. Text torn away under seal.
13. Malvern, or Great Malvern, 9 mi SW of Worcestershire.
14. Gentlemen’s apartments in Piccadilly where WHFT had rooms from 1825 to 1827.