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Document number: 08251
Date: 17 Nov 1860
Dating: year confirmed by eclipse
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: STRANGWAYS William Thomas Horner Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA60-121
Last updated: 24th June 2010

Abb <1> -
17 Novr

My dear Henry

I hear you are alone - you did not answer my last letter <2> - did you go to Carclew? <3> I was sorry to miss you & Whewel [sic]<4> at Bowood, <5> I shd have heard whether the Spanish eclipse <6> answered his expectations as well as yours. I want to see an official account of it, & to know what the results are.

Can you not run down here for a day or two & see the state of the garden after the worst winter & summer ever known? & take the chance of meeting the Llewelyns <7> on the 1st Decr.

I am pleased among the wreck of plants to see that last winter did not kill every thing. The summer I fancy has starved nearly as much as the winter froze. It is odd so wet a season has allowed the formation of such seeds as Illiciums, Drimys, Chimonanthus, Camellias, Jessamines, & other rarities An orange berried Cotoneaster is handsome. Bulbs seem to have suffered or to be retarded very much. Five specimens of Agave have survived - & some dwarf palms - & cacti - Some of my choice ferns are died off - which is disheartening. Dianella in berry is very pretty.

The weather is changeable but very mild lately.

Yr Affte
Wm

Have you seen Kotschy's work on Oaks <8> in Chromolithography the colours are too monstrous & he splits up species like most Germans, but the book is very interesting. I am making a collection of oaks - a Quercetum partly here partly at Melbury, <9> & raising acorns of the varieties.

Notes:

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

2. Presumably Doc. No: 08218.

3. Carclew, Cornwall, 3 mi N of Penryn: seat of Sir Charles Lemon.

4. Rev William Whewell (1794-1866), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor and natural philosopher. See Doc. No: 05337.

5. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.

6. The solar eclipse of 18 July 1860, observed by WHFT in Spain. See Doc. No: 08157.

7. Emma Thomasina Llewelyn, née Talbot (1806-1881), photographer; WHFT's Welsh cousin and her family.

8. Theodor Kotschy (1813-1866), Die Eichen Europas und des Orients, Vienna, Olmütz, Hölzel, 1858-1862.

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