Castleford, <1>
March 15. 1816.
My Dear Mamma,
The Newspaper <2> which you sent me today, was a week old, and disappointed me greatly. I return you the Rat Club, which I like very much I suppose Mr Rattsley and Mr Stuart Ratley mean Mr Wrottesley and Mr Stuart Wortley, <3> don’t they? What has Wyndham Quin <4> to do with it? is he ratting? Is the Marquis of Stafford <5> to be made a Duke? There is a grand meeting at York today. It was raining hard yesterday, and Nuttall exclaimed: “O! it’s a nice day for the people at York tomorrow.” which in my opinion, possesses all the qualities of a legitimate bull – Mr Barnes <6> was going there, but the bad weather deterred him. – Who told you, that I ever wandered in a coal–pit? – I never did – In a sand–pit I did wander, but voluntarily, & with a farthing rushlight, which was of more use than all the shortsighted glasses in the world. It is dug horizontally into the side of a hill, and is clean & nice, whereas the coal pits are dirty & splashy. –
I am reading Mitford’s History of Greece, <7> and am now arrived at about the 21st year of the Peloponnesian war. <8> A.C. 411. It entertains me very much – Alcibiades <9> is the great man on the stage at present.. Since you are so fond of history, I send you a charade <10> which I insist on your finding out, for it is very easy.
My first’s, of various shape and size,
As suits the taste of him who buys –
‘Tis sometimes coarser, sometimes finer,
Sometimes of iron, sometimes china –
It varies too in situation,
In office, dignity, and station;
Now soars in boundless air elate,
Now hisses in a cottage grate:
‘Tis red, or yellow, green, or blue,
Holds Tea, or Coffee, Smoke, or Glue:
Peas porridge, lilies, potted eel,
Or [supplying?] lead, or stewing veal. –
My second; which is very queer,
I’m told, exists but in idea,
For if it had not been ideal,
It might, they tell me, have been real. –
If these two parts be duly join’d,
I do not doubt but you will find
A place, whose siege, in days of old,
Cost seas of blood, and mints of gold.
Yr Affte Son
W. H. F. Talbot
Lady Elisabeth Feilding
Sackville Street
Notes:
1. Castleford, Yorkshire, 10 mi SE of Leeds, where WHFT went to school from 1815-1816.
2. Newspaper not located.
3. John Stuart-Wortley, 2nd Baron Wharncliffe (1801–1855), politician & photographer.
4. Windham Henry Wyndham-Quin, 2nd Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl (1782-1850).
5. George Granville Leveson-Gower, Marquis of Stafford.
6. Rev Theophilus Barnes (1774 –1855), of Castleford.
7. William Mitford, The History of Greece (London: J. Murray and J. Robson, 1784).
8. The war fought between the two leading city-states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta (431–404).
9. Alcibiades (d. 404 BC), Athenian politician.
10. This refers to the siege of Potidea, Halkidiki, Greece in 432 BC, which marked the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC). During the siege Socrates saved Alcibiades’s life.