Harrow <1>
March 5. 1813.
My dear Mamma,
I want my blue phosphorus box extremely, so pray send it. I think you had better send me with it 100 of the matches, which is only 8d I believe, and ask Accum<2> whether the stuff they are dipped into, is sulphuric acid or not. – I forget where the key of the black trunk was put – Has Mr Lemons <3> ticket No 3185 I think, come up a blank or a prize? I have been making some nitrate of quicksilver. It forms pretty yellow crystals, by heating which in the candle, they turn to a bright red powder, which when it is taken away turns yellow-orange colour. Pray send me a little good quicksilver, which can be got at Accum’s & I will try & make vermillion out of it for you. – I have also been dissolving a halfpenny in nitric acid it makes lovely little crystals, blue, of this size [illustration], of this sort of shape but smaller, [illustration]. I have got a small steel bow – I have just finished the Lady of the Lake. <4> – I read all the notes. I have also read these plays of Shakespeare. John. Richard 2d. Henry 4th & I am now reading Henry 5th. I have nearly finished it – Sir James Ramsay <5> has got nearly 70 £ worth of books well bound, here. I intend to borrow them all, one after another. I hurt my arm very much Wednesday last, but it is almost well now. Pray send me some more dates and French plums, for they are universally admired. Open one of the dates, take out the stone lay a knife on it, & with a sudden blow of a hammer split it in two, then pray observe its singular substance, so very like flint, and so amazingly hard. My Paul and Virginia<6> calls the date “full of sweet cream, which has the perfume of orange flowers.” My dates had no cream in them – Give my love to Mr Feilding Caroline & Horatia; <7> & ask Mr F. if he cannot come & see me, before he sets out for Rutlandshire –
Your Affectionate Son
WHFTalbot <8>
P.S. – Last Tuesday being Shrove Tuesday we had our anniversary dinner on pancakes – Lemons & sugar rolled over the tables in promiscuous confusion.
Lady E. Feilding
31 Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811–1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. Friedrich Accum (1769-1838) a chemist and writer in London and an assistant to Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution. Accum was an influential author, a pioneer of gas lighting, and was especially noted for exposing the widespread and dangerous practices of food adulteration. At this time, he operated a shop supplying chemicals and laboratory supplies, taking in a student, Alexander Garden, who later became his partner in Accum & Garden in Soho. In 1820, Accum was caught stealiing pages from books in the library of the Royal Institution and fled to his native Germany. Garden later became a supplier of photographic chemicals to WHFT; see Doc. No: 04632.
3. Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle.
4. The first edition of Walter Scott's poem sold out 25,000 copies within six months: The Lady of the Lake; A Poem. By Walter Scott, Esq. (Edinburgh: Printed for John Ballantyne and Co. Edinburgh; and Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, and William Miller, London; By James Ballantyne and Co. Edinburgh, 1810). Numerous editions were available by the time WHFT read it.
5. Possibly the brother of Sir George Ramsay (1800–1871), philosophical writer, who succeeded his brother, Sir James on 1 January 1859, and of William Ramsay (1806–1865), professor of humanity at Glasgow University.
6. Some edition of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's popular juvenille work, Paul et Virginie; since WHFT expressed the title in English, he may have been reading The shipwreck, or, Paul and Virginia (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1811).
7. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father; Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister; Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
8. This was a highly stylised signature, around which young Talbot drew a box.