[this is written on the same sheet as a note from Horatia - see Doc. No: 00372]
Rome
6th March
My Dear Henry
The weather here is really too bad I never felt it colder this day in England or France. It is besides dark, & gloomy with a sky looking loaded with snow. Davidoff’s son is arrived from Paris, & says he never had so bad a journey, 10 men were obliged to support his carriage crossing Mt Cenis, the snow was so deep. It is a light calêche <1> as he travels en garçon. Harriot Frampton <2> says they had six weeks of intense frost after a heavy fall of Snow, Fahrenheit sometimes at 7 – In Scotland they were six days without the post, chose [illegible]. Gonsalvi says he remembers Rome for 65 years & Never saw such a Winter
Horatia <3> has had a letter from Nurse who is at Carlsruhe, she says “its dreadful cold” & the Snow has been on the ground ten weeks. We went yesterday to the Torre de’ Schiavi & the day before to Roma Vecchia. Mr F. <4> rode to Frascati with Lord William Russell <5> & went over the whole of the Tusculan Villa with him & was back again here by 4 o’clock. Nobody seems to know the exact truth about William Bankes,<6> Harriot says he is at Moreton <7> with her, & some travellers here say they left Lady Buckinghamshire <8> in Switzerland but notwithstanding that it seems generally believed that Lord B <9>– has begun his suit against him. Lord Carnarvon you will see, he went away with Edward Herbert yesterday<10> & talks of only staying four days at Naples. I am afraid you will all be coming back just as we go to Naples. They say Lord Sandon is succeeding where Sir Richard Vivyan failed,<11> how true this is I don’t know, time will shew. Lady William Russell goes to England in a few days, she is Crying her eyes out at leaving Italy & wishes the House of Commons in the red [sic] Sea. Ly Westmorland <12> is gone to Venice she was taken ill at a miserable Inn three posts from Rome & kept there several days.
Nurse tells Horatia they are going to Berne if they dont go to Calcutta.
W. H. F. Talbot
Signor Inglese
Poste Restante
Naples
Notes:
1. Light four-wheeled carriage.
2. Lady Harriet Frampton, née Fox Strangways (d. 1844) .
3. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
4. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
5. Probably Lord William Russell (1767–1840).
6. William John Bankes (1786–1855), politician. He was sued by the Earl of Buckinghamshire for adultery with Lady Buckinghamshire.
7. Moreton, Dorset: home of the Frampton family.
8. Anna Glover Hobart, née Pigot (d 23 May 1878), Lady Buckinghamshire.
9. George Robert Hobart, 5th Earl of Buckinghamshire (1789–1849).
10. Henry George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon (1772–1833). The earl had married Lady Feilding’s cousin, Elizabeth Kitty Acland (d 1813). His travelling companion was his son the Hon. Edward Charles Hugh Herbert (1802-1852).
11. Sir Dudley Ryder, 2nd Earl of Harrowby (1798-1882), styled Viscount Sandon between 1809 and 1847, politician. In September 1823 he married Lady Frances Stuart (d 1859), daughter of John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute. She had previously rejected Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, 8th Bart (1800-1879), Tory MP, FRS.
12. Jane Saunders, Lady Westmorland (d. 1857).