Florence
Nov 30 –

My dear Henry

I have just heard from D^r Buckland ^<1> that he is coming out here in Feb^y to pass the Spring in Italy & Sicily & next Summer in Auvergne – I expect him therefore here about the same time with you – & I wish you may contrive to meet him in London this winter as I conclude you will be there & he also during the month before setting out. I have written to tell him to call on you & I dare say you may see him with the Nicholls. ^<2> I dare say you would like going to Sicily with him & he would be easily persuaded to go to Corfu with you – I hope you will make out that trip & compile a Flora Ionia it would be a pretty little job.

You would also learn Geology by the way which I believe is one of your intentions adjourned sine die. ^<3> I have told him to try to see Scrope ^<4> who would give him many useful hints quite in his way. I want him to come out by Nice &c – & return by the Bernardino or Splugen – Upon all that you could give him much information.

I told you that in June last I put some roots of Orchideæ into water for 3 weeks – changing the water twice in that time & then put them in pots & let them alone – to my surprise the other day I found 3 coming up, but have quite forgot what they were – I suspect, 1 Serapias rubra, & 2 Ophrys, I hope Speculum – I hope to have an opportunity of sending home one pot at least, & have decided it shall be one of the Speculums as I think that w^d be interesting to the Hort. Soc. or M^r Lambert. ^<5> I stuck in 2 little bits of Polygala flaveum which seem to be growing, & by way of making it more valuable, have just put in little ends of Sedums altissimum, virens, hispanicum, monregalense, & collinum. I stuffed into one pot an acorn of Quercus Ballota merely to keep, & forget which it was – I hope it may be in that. Besides I think there is a tree lupine seed from Abbotsbury ^<6> coming up in it which I shall extract if in the way – I wish I had put Cyclamen roots in the bottom & then it would have been the richest pot of 4 inches diameter that one could see. I now wish I had put in a root of all the Orchideæ at a venture – Coriophora, laxiflora – Lingua, cordigera &c.

I have got Fields ^<7> Papers on New Holland, there are some interesting things in it – I think we are slow in importing their plants. – I should like to see tree ferns, hardy in England. I believe they have Alsophila australis in some of the Cornish gardens. –

Certainly Europe is defective in the single item of flowering trees & shrubs – in herbaceous plants, & forest trees it has perhaps a fair share, according to its climates. Raddi ^<8> saw in Brazil Rhexias as large as the largest Oleanders here & covered with flowers equally handsome. The tide seems turning in his favor here, everybody knows his name & his ill usage & the Tuscan public seem inclined to do him justice – His book & Vivianis you will see in Burlington S^{t <9>} or Melbury. ^<10>

Your promised letter from Abbotsbury has not arrived – & from what I hear you have not bestowed time enough on it to see much it is unfortunate you were not there earlier – I have just had a letter from my old companion in the Crimea Wade Browne ^<11> whom I saw for a moment here in the spring – he has been making an interesting tour thro some of the best parts of Germany to the Hartz Saxony Bohemia Silesia &c & as he has learnt to draw since we travelled together he is to bring me some sketches of scenery He discovered what I thought did not exist, some fine scenery & waterfalls in Poland – he writes from Cracow & has been making a tour in the Carpathians, I have seen the Hungarian side of that part of the Mountains, & can fancy scenery of great beauty.

He went to the Lake called Eye of the Sea, the 5 Lakes, the fall of Sclava Voda, & pass of Kosheliska. The M^ts are granite their forms beautiful – that I remember perfectly – any of these spots he says are worthy of Switzerland & as he has been over most part of Switz. on foot, he is a good judge. The Cascade of Sclava Voda is 400 ft high – & second only to Terni, but the Scenery very grand – The moment I can get free from this I shall start off or dart off in that direction – see Venice & the East & North of Italy which I do not know pass the Alps anywhere, seeing bits of Istria, Croatia, Carniola, Carinthia, &c &c to Vienna then by some new road in Hungary (perhaps by the mines) cross the old one at Rosenberg which I sh^d be glad to see again – over the Carpathians by the Pass of Iablunka to Cracow, the Salt mines & all the abovenamed beauties – From Cracow by the Vistula to Warsaw, then Silesia, Dresden & the Middle Landstrich of Germany to England – Do you not think such a tour delightful? –

If you see D^r Buckland tell him of W. Brownes discoveries, as he has been in that quarter & I believe saw none of them – tell him for my letter is sealed, that he found at Prascava in Poland an isolated rock of sandstone I suppose, more extraordinary than the Zuckerhut of Adersbach, bearing evident traces of the Agency of water –

W. Browne found on the summit of the Schneekoppe 5000 ft high a moss that smells of aromatic vinegar – I am to have a bit

Tell me what you are going to do at Lacock – I hear all sorts of reports – is it good garden ground

Y^rs truly
W T H F S

Dorchester, Dec^r twenty six 1825 Ilchester
H Talbot Esq^r
H. Talbot Esq

31. Sackville S^t
London

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Notes:

1. William Buckland (1784–1856), Dean of Westminster & scientist.

2. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874), and Dr John Nicholl (1797–1853), MP.

3. Indefinitely.

4. George Julius Duncombe Poulett Scrope (1797–1876), MP & scientist.

5. Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761–1842), botanist.

6. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.

7. Probably Barron Field (1786–1846), judge of the supreme court of New South Wales 1817–1824.

8. Joseph (Giuseppe) Raddi (1770–1829), Italian botanist.

9. 31 Burlington Street, London home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.

10. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.

11. See Doc. No: 01370.