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Document number: 01083
Date: 31 May 1823
Dating: year likely per Doc no 01094
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: STRANGWAYS William Thomas Horner Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 29th July 2013

Lyons
May 31

My dear Henry

In the hopes that this may find you at Turin I write to let you know the success of my researches between that place & this. I had fine or rather fair weather for crossing the Mt Cenis but excessively cold – the snow lying in large patches round the lake & in many parts of the valley lower down. The season as you may suppose very backward – it will be a fortnight or three weeks I should think before it is in perfection. I got up the mountain behind the hospice as far as the great mass of snow which in one place was melted as far up as the foot of the upper crest of rocks under what the map calls the Glacier de Lamet. in many parts the snow was evidently but just melted & the grass brown rather than green & I have found a person here who crossed only a week ago, three or four days before me, who says the lake was then frozen. So you may ima[gine] <1> it is not yet harvest time there. The first thing that seems to come up after the snow is thawed is a crocus – certainly neither of the two of Naples – & what name to give it I know not. There is a thing like a yellow crocus but has brown outsides to the petals & 6 stamina which is perhaps what Mr Hughes calls yellow crocus & which according to him you should find on the Col de Tende is it an Amaryllis – Colchicum or what? it has woolly stamina. I did not find it but some children brought it in a nosegay – in the wood behind the first post I found for the last time orchis pseudosambucina purple – O. Cyrilli & mascula as it ought to be & always is where I have seen it, viz. with leaves thickly spotted – blossoms near together & the lip reddish purple with dots or obscure veins which <2> in the specimen you found at Tusculum & those I gathered on the Apennines was white in the middle) unspotted – as were the leaves & more like laxiflora. I found also a tall white Potentilla – Cowslips with flowers like the English but leaves downy or silky & of a shape like those of Tenores <3> P. Columnæ <4> – P. farinosa – of which I set about gathering every bit I could see till I saw Gentiana verna when I could not resist gathering all of that till I saw two or three Androsaces & Saxifraga oppositifolia of all which I felt an irresistible impulse to gather all I saw till I saw a little thing with a largish yellow flower (in [illegible]) which I cannot guess. it is beautiful – I found also Draba aizoides – some Saxifrages – a wild ranunculus with lanceolate leaves – 2 Anemones one white & very large the other like Pulsatilla – there were numbers of plants coming forward in the meadows near the lake I found Soldanella [–] a little Cheiranthus – an orchis I take to be latifolia not yet out & a thing with leaves like a Hemerocallis just come up – a Pulmonaria with unspotted leaves & Ornithogalum luteum. There was a little yellow Potentilla in the grass with golden flowers – & a number of other things. In the wood above Lans le Bourg I found Polygala chamæbuxus – & in the meadows Narcissus Poeticus Caltha palustris a white Pedicularis & a red – Since that time we have had deluges of rain & very cold weather I got Erinus alpinus at one post near the Echelles. I did not of course go to the Grande Chartreuse – I think Lanslebourg [sic] the most dismal place I ever saw – & the English inn very indifferent – they say it has not been warm there yet this year. I have not told you my success in books at Turin I got Flora Veronensis <5> – Nicæensis – & Taurinensis <6> & I recommend you to look after some tracts on botany by Allioni <7> published in the transactions of their academy but which are to be had separate of a man who keeps a very good shop near the great restauration <8> belonging to the hotel de l’europe [sic] – in the Great place. <9> I think his name is Pic. I had not time to wait a day which he required pour faire sortir de son magasin <10> those old things but you may. They will probably suit either you or me & I dare say you may get the whole lot for a trifle as the man said he should be quite happy to get rid of them You may get there a good map of the Mt Cenis I picked up at a stall the only Bargain I ever got at a stall in my life – an old black letter romance of the Chevalier Isaie le triste <11> which was to be sold for a crown & a half & which I got for half a crown well bound in vellum & perfect quite a bibliomaniac copy of a book which I hope to find out is very rare. I have been to the botanic garden here but it is new & M. Balbis <12> the director is ill. I hope you have been to see the garden at Turin If you go to the university, you will see a sleeping cupid in the middle of the first room which is famous – but go into the last & you will see another of the same subject in the corner near Benvenuto Cellinis shield which I think more beautiful – I believe you never to go see pictures or I should recommend you to go to the Marquis Sca[lu?]bianti’s he has some fine Coreggios. <13> Write to me in London –

Yr Affate
W T H F S

[address panel:]
A Monsieur
Monsieur W. H. Fox Talbot
à la Poste restante
à Turin


Notes:

1. Written off the edge of page.

2. No opening bracket.

3. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.

4. Primula Columnæ [and farinosa].

5. Ciro Pollini (1782–1833), Flora Veronensis … (Verona: 1822–1824).

6. Giovanni Battista Balbis (1765–1831), Flora Taurinensis… (Turin: J. Giossi, 1806).

7. Carlo Allioni (1725–1804).

8. Restaurant.

9. Square.

10. Extract from his shop.

11. Isaie le triste, filz Tristan de leonois, jadis chevalier de la table ronde… (Paris: pour Galliot du Pre, 1522).

12. Author of Flora Taurinensis [see above].

13. Misspelling for Antonio Allegri (Correggio) (1494–1534).