Genoa
10th December
My Dear Henry
We are at last most comfortably lodged & have got a very nice house on the Hill, a sort of rus in urbe, <1> both in & out of the town at once. It has a charming garden in terraces à l'Italienne, <2> with treilles de Vignes, <3> orange trees & quantities of roses in full blow. The Weather is most delicious & at the moment you were cutting the fog between Deptford & London we were admiring a magnificent sun set on this beautiful Bay with floods of golden light playing on the gentle waves. The great want here is a place for exercise, Car & Hor <4> take long walks, but for me I am tired before I can get out of the town. I am glad we did not take Lord Byron's villa, <5> for it is too far in the Country for the Winter, we could not even have come to the Theatre, which is a great resource as they happen to have some very tolerable actors at this moment. What I have liked best since I have been here was my Excursion to la Spezia, <6> which killed a week of the Winter, & the weather was so fine one could not help forgetting entirely the season of the year. I am charmed with the hieroglyphics, such a discovery <7> almost makes one believe in the perfectibilité de l'esprit humain. <8> It is incomprehensible they should have lowered the duties so much as appears by your letter, if we had known that it would not have been worth while to bother ourselves with l'entremise <9> of any ambassador. I hope Mr F's <10> letter will be in time to prevent Richard <11> sending the Caisse <12> back here, & that he will at once pay the duty upon everything, unless indeed a certain picture by Vandyck <13> which I am surprized is valued so high, but probably the Douaniers <14> of Dover are no judges of original painting. We have got this house for five Months from the 1st December, an appalling prospect, however I endeavour to make up my mind to it, tho' I own I consider it a sad hole in one's life. Tis not that I dislike Genoa in itself by any means, but we shall certainly have entirely exhausted it long before the 1st of May, it will probably too be very hot even in March. Lady Jersey <15> received her pure gold malleable Genoese beads without having been handled by the rude hands of Custom House officers, she is the only one who has answered me of all the numerous letters you took over. There is a Reading room here where all the English Newspapers are taken & Reviews, & new Publications, so we <16> may have at full length what Galignani <17> only gives us a taste of Had we known this we need not have sent for Quintin Durward <18> nor the Age of Bronze, <19> as we found them here but they are not arrived nor the parcel in which you sent something to Caroline tho' we daily enquire at the Bureau des Diligences. <20>
God Bless you My Dearest
W.H.F. Talbot Esqr
31. Sackville Street
London
Inghilterra
Notes:
1. Countryside in the town.
2. In the Italian style.
3. Vine trellises.
4. 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.
5. George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), poet. [See Doc. No: 01299].
6. See Doc. No: 01085.
7. The discoveries of Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), historian and linguist who founded scientific Egyptology and played a major role in the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Dr Thomas Young (1773-1829), English physicist and also an Egyptologist who, along with Champollion, helped decipher the Rosetta Stone. [See Doc. No: 01127].
8. The perfectibility of the mind of man.
9. Intervention.
10. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.
11. Richard, a servant.
12. Box.
13. Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), painter.
14. Customs officers.
15. Sarah Sophia Villiers, née Fane, Lady Jersey (1785-1867). [See Doc. No: 01111].
16. Written off the edge of page.
17. Giovanni Antonio Galignani (1757-1821), he was the founder of the newspaper Galignani's Messenger, which had a wide circulation among English residents on the Continent.
18. A misspelling of Walter Scott's Quentin Durward (1823).
19. George Gordon Byron, The Age of Bronze (1823).
20. A "diligence" was a stage coach and the coaching offices served as an early form of post office.