Genoa.
13 Novr
My dear Henry –
Your letter <1> from Lyons interested me very much, & I wish I had replied to it directly, & before I had been dispirited by the receipt of Richards <2> letter telling me of all the difficulty, & I fear impossibility of getting my Case through the Custom House without paying the duties – about 9/10th of the things I should never have thought of buying but for the opportunity of getting them safe into England – the duties on many of them being more than ten times the original cost. These of course I must leave to their fate, but I will not plague you any more with this worry but proceed to another, the difficulty of getting a house here, which has been & is very great, we are lodged for the present at the albergo della Villa, where they have given us a Kitchen & where we pay for our apartment as in any Lodging House. I am in hopes however of getting a very good House near M. de Zach <3> which will be a great pleasure to me & to you also when you come – this has a little taken off the enjoyment I should otherwise have had in this place – & the only consolation I have is in thinking that there is no other within our reach & means to which we could have gone. I talked to Zach about your method of finding the Error of the watch which he said he has practised, he is to tell me how to find the True Time by the same observation if you have the exact bearing of your Tower* – he observes the sun every day for his Chronometer <4>, & I shall do the same when once I am fixed – (* I conclude you must know the Name of the Star) as he will lend me a sextant & Horizon <5> – He has just recd a Theodolite <6> from Munich, very valuable, broken all to pieces, a misfortune now irreparable for Reichenbach <7>, because he was the best Instrument maker in the world, has been made head of the Department of Ponts et Chaussées <8> of which he knows nothing, & has left Munich – Utzchneider <9> his partner & Successor, is very inferior, & in short there are no more perfect instruments to be had from thence, & we must look to Amici <10> – I was made most happy by reading the account of Parrys <11> safe arrival which was of more consequence than all the discoveries he could have made, but he seems to have totally failed as to the object of his Voyage & I conclude the attempt will not be repeated, he seems to have been very near ending his days there – De Zach does not seem to think much of Champollions <12> discovery at least his Correspondents do not he says, for he himself knows nothing on the subject – and Ld Dudley <13> who we have had some Time with us tells me that his agent in Staffordshire where he has 27 Steam Engines at work says he thinks Perkins’s <14> too complicated to be a good slave, but I dare say they are both wrong, of the latter I have great hopes – I have daily enquired for the Bibliotheque Universelle but it has never arrived – Your Mother Mont:ie & Caroline <15> are gone to La Spezia <16>, & return on Saturday they have beautiful weather, not cold – there is a letter from you to her with the Post Mark Macon <17> – you seem to make slow progress. – Richard writes me word that there are great rumours of wars in the City but I do not believe in them – Angioj is gone to Acqui <18> on the recruiting Service for 6 months, which diminishes our Society, lessened also by the departure of the Nevilles <19>, Ld Dudley & the Belfasts <20> – We have found a Dancing Master, & a riding School –
I conclude your stay in London will be short, for you will hardly find one soul there you know, & more Fog than you like – I suppose indeed that this letter will have to follow you into the Country.
Ever Yrs my love most affly
C. F.
W. H. F. Talbot Esqre
Inghilterra
31 Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Letter not located.
2. Richard, a servant.
3. Franz Xaver, Baron von Zach (1754–1832), Hungarian astronomer.
4. Instrument for keeping highly accurate time, used especially in navigation.
5. Sextant: instrument for measuring the altitude of the sun or another celestial body; such measurements can then be used to determine the observer’s geographical position or for other navigational, surveying, or astronomical applications. Horizon glass: half transparent and half mirror, it is the part of the sextant which reflects the image of the sun from which the altitude can be read.
6. Calibrated optical instrument used to determine relative position in surveying, navigation, and meteorology.
7. Georg von Reichenbach (1772-1826), German astronomical instrument maker.
8. Bridges and Highways
9. Joseph von Utzschneider (1763–1840), German instrument maker.
10. Possibly Prof Giovanni Battista Amici (1786–1868), Italian optician & man of science.
11. Sir William Edward Parry (1790–1855), Arctic explorer. His second Arctic expedition returned to Britain Oct/Nov 1823.
12. Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832), historian, linguist, founder of scientific Egyptology and decipherer of hieroglyphics. [See Doc. No: 03819].
13. John William Ward, 1st Earl Dudley (d. 1833).
14. Angier March Perkins (1799–1881).
15. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother and Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
16. Italy
17. See Doc. No: 01111.
18. Acqui Terme, Italy.
19. Charles Neville (d. 1848) and his wife, Lady Georgiana , née Bingham (1799-1849). [See also Doc. No: 00215].
20. Probably George Augustus Chichester, 2nd Marquess of Donegall and Earl of Belfast (1769–1844), and his wife Anne Douglas-Hamilton. [See Doc. No: 01112].