Sackville Street <1>
January 15th
My Dear Henry
It’s a mystery I cannot unravel, an enigma I cannot find out, a problem I cannot solve, why you don’t write to me. I really believe I have written you 3 letters since. In one <2> I remember asking you a question about the Phrygian Sage, in another <3> telling you about your new Cousin at Lansdowne House <4> Since which you have one born at Melbury <5> & another at Deans Leaze. <6> No lack of cousins for Anno Domini <7> eighteen hundred & sixteen. I sent your Italian books too, which you have never acknowledged, In short I don’t know whats come to you in those northern regions. Mr F. <8> is at Middleton, where I should have met him, if I had been well enough, but I have had a petite Santé <9> lately. If you read the Morning Chronicle <10> you may have seen the Births of all these Cousins in it. I have likewise sent you regularly the Examiner. <11> It is universally said that Princess Charlotte <12> is to marry Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg <13> but it has not yet been communicated to Mrs Campbell <14> or Lady Ilchester. <15> I had a great mind to have sent you the last new Edinburgh Review & Quarterly <16> with the Italian books, but I thought very likely Mr Barnes <17> took them in. Does he? – Adiò Carissimo <18>
Conservatevi ed amatemi <19>
Caroline <20> says you have not answered her French Letter
Willm Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Revd Mr Barnes
Castleford
Ferrybridge
Yorkshire
Notes:
1. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
2. Letter not located.
3. Letter not located.
4. Probably one of the children of Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle. Lansdowne House, London: home of the Marquis of Lansdowne, WHFT's uncle and cousins.
5. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
6. Deans Leaze, Dorset.
7. One thousand.
8. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
9. Poor health.
10. Morning Chronicle, newspaper first established in London by William Woodfall in 1769.
11. Examiner, newspaper launched in 1808. [See Doc. No: 00677].
12. Princess Charlotte (1744–1817), daughter of George IV, Prince Regent, later King of England.
13. Prince Leopold George Frederick of Saxe-Saalfeld-Coburg, later King Léopold I of the Belgians (1790–1865).
14. Alicia Campbell, née Kelly, ‘Tam’ (1768–1829). She was a member of the Princess's household - see Louisa Charlotte Frampton, "The Princess Charlotte and Mrs. Campbell," The Gentleman's Magazine, v. 17, n.s., September 1876, pp. 275-289.
15. Caroline Leonora Fox Strangways, née Murray, Countess of Ilchester (1788–1819).
16. The Edinburgh Review, a quarterly magazine founded in October 1802 by Francis Jeffrey, Sydney Smith and Henry Brougham. The Quarterly Review was established by John Murray in 1809 as a Tory rival to the Whig supporting Edinburgh Review.
17. Rev Theophilus Barnes (1774 –1855), of Castleford.
18. Goodbye dearest.
19. Look after yourself and love me.
20. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.