Penrice <1>
My dear Henry,
March 27
I am disappointed you do not remember the Cytissus [sic] I sent you, we consider it one raised from seed you sent from Varese, it flowered last year but I do not know whether that was for the first time or not as we were not at home in the Spring the year before –
Your Aunt Mary <2> received the dried specimen of the Tropælum tricolor and we all admired it very much I have seen the Epacrise impressa in Laddiges and wrote down the name to get it as it looked so pretty. – Uncle Wm <3> sent me seed of the Arakis rosea but none is come up which I am doubly sorry for now you say it is so pretty. the Lithospernum rosemarini folium is in great beauty & has been in flower under glass, ever since I returned home last December. I have raised some young plants from cuttings as it appears a short lived plant. I have also the Allium pendulinum which Uncle Wm sent, in flower in a pot & one or two of his Neapolitan Cyclamens the others shew no signs of flowering this Spring. –
Isabella <4> is in very good health she spent some time with us at Christmas, and has had a fine cargo of plants & Trees since to put in her garden which is not at all pretty but will be very enjoyable when it is finished as the windows open into it & one can pinch roses &c without stepping out if one is lazy! – Charlotte’s <5> garden has been much transformed since she has been the mistress & it is very pretty indeed, the whole place is extremely pretty for an inland place. She is very well; & likewise spent Christmas here so we were a happy party. I am sorry to say they do not talk of going to Town this year. – We shall miss Caroline <6> entirely which I am very sorry for, but we cannot go to London before the latter end of April, however we shall I hope be introduced to one new coz <7> as you do not go abroad so soon – Pray forward the enclosed for me to Harriot Mundy. <8>–
All send their kind love
I am your affate cos
Mary T. T–
I have the Crocus Longiflora or ramiflora in flower for the first time, sent by Uncle Wm it looks much more like an ixia in my opinion –
I heard from Uncle Wm of a sweet scented crocus which charms me.–
We have been to Mew Slade today & thought of you when we sat down to eat our lunch do you remember writing verses on our disasters there in former days? we sat for some time in our friend Isaac Stole’s house afterwards till the carriage was ready.
W. Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
2. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776–1855), WHFT’s aunt.
3. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
4. Isabella Catherine Franklen, née Talbot (1804–1874).
5. Charlotte Louisa 'Charry' Traherne, née Talbot (1800–1880), WHFT’s cousin.
6. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
7. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
8. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.