Coedriglan <1>
January 23d.
My dear Henry
I cannot help writing to tell you how much we like your Hermes <2> pray go on and let us have more of your very striking and curious conjectures & discoveries – of course I cannot understand your Greek but all I do make out delights me – you say some thing about Veii meaning holy city – do you think the original word has any connection with Vehm or Wehmgorichte which was considered a holy tribunal – I like all your story of the man in the pit particularly – Mr Traherne <3> showed your first Hermes to the Bishop of Llandaff <4> when we were in ther at his house last October and he is very fond of these sort of researches so he was much pleased – he is going to publish some letter of Lord Dudley’s <5> in which he shewed me a pretty little character of you which I think describes you very well. so pray look for it when you happen to meet with the book – I wish you could have come to see us when you were at Margam <6> I liked the photogenics <7> you did there, very much. We bought a camera obscura and tried our hands but failed and the only thing I have done at all is an etching on glass<8> – Emma <9> did an etching on glass for the report of the Swansea institution which was very nice – it was a view of a new cave of bones that was discovered in the north coast of Gower – I do not know if the Roman inscription was found at Aberavon since you were at Margam or while you were there – I think Kit <10> has made out very satisfactorily who it is about, that is if the letters are as he says, but I have not seen the stone for the Aberavon people took it away and have locked it up in their town-hall. I shall have a good account of Mrs Talbot & the children <11> from Mama <12> when she comes here I hope –
Your affectionate cousin
Charlotte Traherne
Coedriglan
Jan 23d.
H. Fox Talbot Esqre.
31 Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Coedriglan, near Cardiff, Wales: home of the Rev John Montgomerie Traherne, husband of WHFT’s cousin Charlotte.
2. WHFT, Hermes: or Classical and Antiquarian Researches, No. 2. (London: Longman, Orme, Green, Brown & Longman, 1839).
3. Rev John Montgomerie Traherne (1788–1860), JP & author.
4. Bishop Edward Copplestone. [See Doc. No: 04013].
5. John William Ward, 1st Earl Dudley (d. 1833).
6. Margam Park, Glamorgan: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
7. ie, photogenic drawings, the first photographic process devised by WHFT, and one that could produce either negatives or positives.
8. Later, in the hands of Barbizon artists, this became known as cliché verre. WHFT employed it in 1834. The artist would take a smoked or varnished piece of glass, cut lines through to create the image, and then print this on WHFT, photogenic drawing paper. An example is in Larry J Schaaf, The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), plate 2.
9. Emma Thomasina Llewelyn, née Talbot (1806–1881), photographer; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
10. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
11. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife; Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter; Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter; Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.
12. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776–1855), WHFT’s aunt.