Friday Evg
My dear Sir
Your note <1> has just reached me. Many thanks for your kind congratulns All our party are very well I am glad the bulbs have thriven & if you want other and better pray drop me a line as early as possible to No 10 Hanover Crescent Regent’s Park (where I shall be in posse if not in esse) <2> for the next 4 or 5 months and state your exact address and the conveyance by which they will most certainly & expeditiously reach you.– I have some superb Satyrium’s (one of wh a nondescript) has been entitled nicknamed by a very talented young assistant at the Cape (Mr Harvey) <3> after myself – but they are no longer transportable being already in full leaf in boxes of earth, but next year I can give you roots of them & of the Satyrn Carneum a most lovely thing.
ã Argus when I last saw it near St Helena had already declined from its extraordinary state of excitement (equal or very nearly so to á Centauri, and superior to Arcturus). It had sunk to the level of about Aldebaran.– Frcs Baily <4> informs that in __________’s Catalogue it is marked 4 m. – It is altogether a most remarkable phenomenon.
I have today housed the great mass of my obsns & by tomorrow expect to have all under lock & key. I believe the Southern sky has been pretty well rummaged.
I remain dr sir yours very truly
JFW Herschel
H.F. Talbot Esqr
Lacock Abbey
near Chippenham
Somerset
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 03679.
2. Possibly, if not actually.
3. William Henry Harvey (1811–1866), was Colonial Treasurer at Cape Town 1836–1842.
4. Francis Baily (1774–1844), astronomer and one of the founders of the Astronomical Society.