Laycock Abbey
24 April
My Dear Henry
Horatia <1> saw the stick in your botanic garden with Ligusticum Garganicum in your own handwriting, & she supposes you cannot mean it is to be taken up & put into a pot now, if that is really your meaning answer by return of post, but she will not believe it can be. She wants to know whether you have been to see the beautiful show of Flowers in the Egyptian hall, set up in rivalship to the Horticultural, a good thing to keep them in order. The Ribes in the Botanic garden is perfectly beautiful, I wish Constance <2> would work it on canvass three shades of the most lovely red in soft gradation. The whole shrubbery is spangled with Wood anemonies [sic], millions of Primroses & wild violets, & countless daffodils gild the prairie. Reid <3> says you planted the said Ligusticum in a row & expressed yourself at the time against potting, but if by return of post you persist, I have promised to let him know immediately. It is doing very well & coming out. I write instead of Horatia who is not well. This place is always cheerful & I do not find it uncomfortable at all. It was lucky I did not depend on Mrs Marchant <4> who has lamed herself jumping out of a window, think of her being so frisky. I received your letter <5> at Abbotsbury <6> about the Carpet & mean to take the measure to you, as I hope you will let me help you to chuse it, it is so amusing, & not an amusement that recurs often. Cary is plastering that little dressing room, and the Banke’s <7> [sic] are rebuilding the Alcove, so that the place is quite animated, it is so pleasant to see something going on. I ordered (according to Constance’s desire by her last letter to Abbotsbury) Fortune to paint the door on the East Terrace & the Hall door but only the outsides as it is the Weather that injures them, & the insides do not require There is a very find Pyrus Japonica in the [illegible] Court by the Stable door, it is entirely a mass of scarlet, & a brighter tint than any I have seen, all the things planted in that Court nine years ago, you must consider as souvenirs of him <8> who planted them, & will I hope bring him to your memory many years hence. I expect a Letter from Harriet Mundy <9> tomorrow which will decide whether I ought to go to comfort Caroline <10> or may stay this week. In one case I must leave it all in the hands of Mr Paley, <11> for the people in London are so unpunctual, we have already waited for them a week. I am glad you still intend going into Wales, it will be pleasant for all parties
affy yrs
EF
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
31. Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
3. John Reid, head gardener at Lacock Abbey.
4. See Doc. No: 03649.
5. Letter not located.
6. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
7. George Banks, snr (1786–1864), stonemason & coalseller, Lacock; and his son, Charles Selman Banks (1805-1881), stonemason, Lacock.
8. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837) Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
9. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
10. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
11. Rev James Paley (1790–1863), Vicar at Lacock.