Normanton <1>
March 2d 1817.
My Dear Mamma,
My box came only last week – Everything was very safe & well packed, and I will send the list of Books in my next letter – why did you send me Colquhoun on the Police? <2> I am sure I never selected it – Grillo’s Fables <3> did not come, nor my pretty Conciones Latinæ <4> – I have looked at the Cape seeds, & think them likely to grow – Some of them are very old looking things. The names appealed to me, as far as I could judge from the appearance of the Seeds, to be in general, right enough – I want to know, whether anybody, & who, has unsatisfied claims on the said seeds – Those you sent me were not a quarter of the whole, have you given away all the rest? The plates Mr Hooker <5> sent me, were most beautiful. Pray send me Brown’s Prodromey <6> whenever you have anything else to send with it – What Plates do you speak of, as come with it? I have not heard a syllable about William <7> yet – Pray tell me where he is, & what adventures he has met with – I did not see in the Paper any high words between Mr Lamb & Sir F. Burdett <8> – what passed between them? My map of the Sky came very safe – I have been amusing myself with predicting eclipses like Thales of old–<9> Pray ask Mr Feilding <10> when he goes into any Bookseller’s Shop to look at the Nautical Almanack <11> for next year which of course is published, & tell me whether is not an Eclipse of the Moon on April 20th and another on October 13th for such I predict, & wish to know if my predictions are true – Tell Car. & Hor. <12> I owe them a letter, –
I remain Yr Affte Son,
W. H. F. Talbot
N. B. The Eclipses are always near the Beginning of the N. Almanack – I like the new Italian Dictionary very much – Pray answer all the questions asked in this letter –
The Lady Elisth Feilding
31 Sackville St
London
STAMFORD <13>
Notes:
1. Normanton, Rutlandshire.
2. Probably an earlier edition of Patrick Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis (London: C. Dilly, 1797).
3. See Doc. No: 00738.
4. See Doc. No: 00738.
5. Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), Prof & botanist. [See Doc. No: 00134.]
6. Robert Brown, Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae ci Insulae Van Diemen (London: 1810). This work furthered the general adoption of A. L. de Jussieu’s, natural system of plant classification.
7. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
8. Sir Francis Burdett (1770–1844), politician. George Lamb (1784–1834), politician and man of letters.
9. Thales of Miletus (ca. 635BC-543BC), Greek philosopher and father of science. He sought naturalistic explanations of phenomena like eclipses, rather than attributing them to divine interventions.
10. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
11. The British Nautical Almanack, published for a first time in 1767.
12. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
13. Printed text.